Silent Thief, Stealthy Crime
by jakc
Summary: He sweeps the terrible night, clothed by night's black darkness. He takes not what is his but is his to steal to cull his frightful thirst. A TJ story.
1. Chapter 1

Since Tess' departure is looming (for those watching the classic eps) I thought I might as well write down my version of "the perfect" ending between TJ. It is a little different and I so warn that it may be a little overwhelming and of course incredibly sad but in itself a lovely bittersweet story so if you're willing by all means read away!

Umm with the italics, I better explain that before I get everyone confused. They are flashbacks, sorta like what I did before although they contribute directly to storyline. So it's Tess telling the story through her reflection on the past. Lost? Don't worry you'll get it as you read along!

**Disclaimer: **None of the characters you recognise to be connected with Blue Heelers are my creation but there are some that are. If I could be bothered I would list them but you'll know who they are. My thanks to Chihuly, not that he'll ever read this.

**Silent Thief, Stealthy Crime**

Chapter one

"**He sweeps the terrible night, clothed by night's black darkness. **

**He takes not what is his but is his to steal to cull his frightful thirst."**

"Tess Gallagher?" I looked up and saw the thin and wiry woman with her olive green cardigan hanging down past her waist and the dark green buttons adorning the side shined brightly in contrast to her burnt orange wispy hair. She was aged but that was okay, that meant she was experienced.

She beckoned me into the room just behind her and closed the door after me.

Her room smelt of beiged old books and polished leather and it made me scrunch my nose. The old woollen burgundy carpet was well worn from nervous carpet shredding feet but it still managed to give the room a vehement professional glow.

Black leather buttoned couches sat adjacent to each other in the most solemn of ways and if it weren't for them this room would be almost picturesque. Like a 19th century study, thick lacquered antique furniture plastered the walls, thick, dusty, red leather bound books adorned the shelves along with various abstract mini sculptures and joyous family photos.

The gallant oak desk littered with patients files stood aimlessly by the window and light amber light flooded through thick crimson curtains and danced along yesterday's paper making the strangest of shadows.

"Please sit down." The woman asked kindly scooting past me to her desk to grab a file and her thick framed burgundy glasses and I sat down. The leather coach was too big to lean my arms against so I placed them in my lap. As the clock ticked silently, my heart grew heavy, my throat ached and my stomach filled with the heaviness of lead. I stared at the floor, trying to forget the present moment, why I was here and why I shouldn't be but my thoughts were interrupted by the soft sigh of the pleasant woman's voice.

"Well Tess Gallagher, how do you feel today?" Her voice as soft and meek as a little fledgling's, I was obliged to answer.

"Oh not too bad..." I lied, if the dark rings under my eyes didn't give it away then my tired, wasted away body must have. The lady only smiled in acknowledgement and neatly closed her folder in her lap, placing in down on the floor next to her feet.

"You look a little tired." she said empathetically rubbing the tips of her knees with her palms.

"I haven't been able to get much sleep," I muttered to myself softly but the lady overheard and smiled gently again.

"I don't get much sleep either but I suppose you'd need some for your line of work?"

"Sleep's more than imperative." I said looking down at her feet, her starched green velvet shoes sat neatly on the carpet.

"Professor, where would you like me to begin?" I asked hastily, I didn't want to sit here long.

"Oh please, call me Lucy. The only person that calls me professor is my son and he only does it to annoy me." I smiled to myself, a kind name Lucy is, it means light.

"Tess, maybe you could tell me a little about yourself, what you do for a living, your interests?" A vague question, okay, it was better than what I was here to talk about.

"I'm a Sergeant, in the Police force, stationed in Mt. Thomas just south of Widgeree. I look after a great bunch of constables there along with a very dignified Senior Sergeant..."

"Tom Croydon?" Lucy asked and I nodded in response.

"A very pleasant man." said Lucy and let me continue.

"I don't have a family but I like being alone for the most part, I don't seem to mind my own company." I said softly, hinting that that wasn't true at all. I'd longed for someone to come home to but Lucy need not know that.

"Married at all?" Lucy asked watching my right hand cover my left in attempt to hide the ring that was no longer there.

"Once," I mentioned, "You wouldn't really call it a marriage, I had it annulled."

"I see..." Lucy looked carefully down to her hands a soft blaze of embarrassment washed over her before she looked up again.

"I guess that would be all?" I asked her hinting that I'd rather not say anything else. I couldn't spill my guts to anybody like Lucy, not even if it had the slightest of effect.

"If you like Tess but just one more question..." I looked up with the slightest of curiosity.

"You wouldn't mind telling me a little about your colleagues?" I closed my eyes and sighed, there was no way of getting around Lucy; she knew more than I thought she did and her quite and pleasant demeanour almost ate away at me.

"You want to know about Evan..." I whispered, swallowing hard and letting myself breathe out very slowly, just to stop the tears.

"If you'd be so kind…" Lucy smiled and tilted her head gently to one side, indicative of her occupation.

"Well, there isn't much to say really..." I stalled for time, having no idea where to begin nor wanting to begin either. I didn't need to be here, I seemed to manage quite fine at home but PJ made sure that I came. "Talk to Lucy" he said, "She'll help". I was still undecided as to whether she would.

"Your GP says that you seem to dream about him, he must occupy a lot of your thought." she said rather decisively and there was nothing I could do but agree. I nodded and looked down and my hands, I'd unconsciously started wringing them, so much so the nails digging into my hands nearly drew blood.

"Tess..." Lucy said softly moving to sit on the couch next to me and she gently touched my arm. I looked up at her and drew breath in sharply letting out a miserable sigh. My frustrated hands clasped over my face and my eyes squeezed as tightly as I could I let myself calm down, my breathing slowed before I next opened my eyes.

"Tell me what happened on Tuesday Tess." Lucy asked softly placing her hand on my shoulder gently. I didn't want to talk about what happened on Tuesday, as far as I'm concerned Tuesday never happened, I was to forget it, shove it aside and get on with my life, like I always did.

I shook my head firmly and grit my teeth while I swallowed hard again, averting any sort of pain away from my throat.

"I don't want to talk about Tuesday." I said sternly, my temper almost flaring, boiling away inside me like a near explosive volcano.

"Okay," said Lucy, the little sigh she emitted told me that she was disappointed but her voice still rang with sympathy.

"How about Evan, why don't we talk about Evan?" she suggested gently, hand still on shoulder.

"No!" I yelled; the anger in my voice fierce and unwarranted, it made Lucy flinch a little and the sad look in her eyes grew.

"I'm sorry..." I whispered and rub my forehead bitterly with my palm.

"Tess, there's no need to be sorry, I understand that you're frustrated..." Lucy tried to comfort me and I shied away within myself, became distant and withdrawn.

A lone tear fell down my cheek, the only hint of my vexed emotions.

"Evan..." I spluttered under choked back tears.

"What was he like Tess?" Lucy asked, grabbing any opportunity to let me talk about my feelings and somehow I was too frustrated to stop her.

"Oh, he drove me nuts!" I said angrily. Hiding my eyes away beneath my hand, wiping away at any oncoming tear.

"You were his superior?" asked Lucy and I nodded.

"The stupid idiot would never listen! Too bloody persistent for his own good! Oh I hated him for it!" my voice filled with bitter anger.

"Ahh, he's sounds just like my son Jamie. He never listens when I tell him anything important, nearly got his leg sliced off once even when I told him a million times to "stay away from those horrid train tracks"." Lucy reminisced.

"Men, eh?" I whispered; my eyes puffy from unwanted tears.

"Constantly thinking their immortal? I know what you mean!" Lucy laughed a rather dismal laugh and looked at me assiduously.

"Immortal!" I scoffed at that stupid word. "Evan was such a moronic cowboy!"

"He didn't listen to you on Tuesday did he?" asked a rather curious Lucy.

"I told him to go the doctor's but he just shrugged it off, said he was 'fine'..."

_

* * *

"Evan, could you and Jo head off to the McKinley's, there's been a report of shooting, probably just some kids shooting at cans but it wouldn't hurt to check it out." I asked Jonesy who should have been sitting to the left of me completely absorbed in writing up those reports I gave him but from the corner of my eye I could see he wasn't. Too concerned with the ever increasing mound of paperwork in front of me I didn't give him a second look but as he staggered in from the toilets looking rather pale I diverted my attention to him immediately._

_"Hey, you okay there?" I asked rather concerned, Evan shut his eyes rather briskly and breathed in sharply, clutching his stomach and wincing in pain. Seeing that he was hardly "okay", I got up from my desk and helped him to his chair._

_"Here, sit down for a while, you look rather sick..." I rubbed his shoulder gently and Evan arms lunged around his stomach again quite violently clutching at it. He leant his head against his desk and sighed deeply, his hair glistened from pouring sweat._

_"Evan, what's wrong?" I asked quite concerned as I helped him sit up and brushed his severely wet forehead with my towel._

_"I don't feel..." his sentence was cut off as he clutched his stomach again and getting up rather forcefully and pushing his way past me he ran for the kitchenette, his hand clasped over his mouth in desperate worry. I rushed after him stopping just before PJ's office door when I saw that Evan stood over the sink and the contents of his brought up lunch lay in the bottom it. A sticky, disgusting, mess and rather a nice bleached yellow._

_He let the tap run and the yellow mess dissolved away down the sink and the thick smell of vomit faded away._

_"I'm sorry; I just didn't want to get it all over the floor." muttered Evan, wiping his mouth with wet hands and apologising quite profusely for something that seemed inevitable._

_"Oh no, don't worry. You just sit down went you feel ready and I'll get you a glass of water then I'll drive you home." I said quite sympathetically, rubbing his back gently with my palm before I went for a mug to poor some water in._

_"Oh, there's no need..." Evan was talking about me taking him home. _

_"...I'll be fine." he muttered half heartedly his breath reeked of garlic and it threw me off a little but the look on his face was sincere and genuine. I looked up into his washy blue eyes; they'd fade to a dismal grey. I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming tinge of concern._

_"Bit heavy on the garlic hey?" I remarked almost holding my nose but it didn't make him smile like I thought it would. I loved it when he smiled, it was strangely contagious and it filled me the most glorious warmth._

_"No, I can't stand the stuff!" Evan looked puzzled and soon after closed his eyes and with much effort tried to sustain an oncoming headache, one of the many he'd seem to have recently._

_"Really, Tess...I'll sit out this shift." he said weakly and I was surprised he convinced himself._

_"You still have those headaches?" I asked. I felt a slight tightness in my chest. Evan barely nodded. "You need to see a doctor, come on I'll give you a lift to the hospital, I'm sure the Boss won't mind..."_

_"In that case just take me home." he said simply and all effort to convince him otherwise was useless._

* * *

"Headaches?" asked Lucy with eager curiosity, her hand came up to her chin and she pondered Evan's symptoms. A moment of silence passed and she looked me cautiously in the eyes. She knew what it was! How I could I have been so bloody stupid? She figured it out in two seconds! 

I took the moment to look at her properly; her deep sea green eyes in intense wonderment gave contrast to her starkly pale face. The faded rouge on her cheek gave away that she was hardly the vibrant women she seemed, instead a lady that was meek and plain. A professional women of high standard she wore minimal makeup and somehow it made her appear that little bit more graceful but her blanched vermilion lips would have done with some colour, against her strongly dyed orange hair, neatly brushed into a comfortable bun, her lips looked rather pale and scared.

"He'd had them for quite a while." I finally answered, once her astonished expression turned into a grave one.

"I see, and you had no idea?" she asked politely but I knew exactly what went through her head. 'She should have driven him to the hospital; she should have driven him to the hospital'. If those words didn't float discommodiously through her mind then they did through mine. Nasty, vilifying words they were, they wrapped themselves around my throat and made it hard to breathe. But Lucy was right, I should have known. I should have been more careful.

"I didn't think it was that bad, I only thought they were just headaches, he seemed fine..."

_

* * *

"Sarge?" Evan's voiced bellowed from the kitchenette and being distracted by Mrs. Callaway at the front counter I had no time to answer but hearing his quite desperate plea I let Jo handle the sniping old Mrs. Callaway and headed to tend to Evan's plea._

_"Yeah?" I asked peering around behind him, he'd managed to rifle through the cupboard above the sink and take everything out of it and carefully laid it out on display on the bench below._

_"Do we have anymore Panadol left?" he asked quite bemused but the pain of his throbbing headache made him wince._

_"Have you checked the First Aid box?" I asked, well it was the logical place to search._

_"Yeah, none there..." he pouted and rubbed his forehead, giving me the biggest soppy look of being in horrific pain. I couldn't help but smile and in a mock concerned voice I stepped towards him._

_"Oh let's see that head of yours..." I cooed and Evan let me place a cold hand on his forehead. "Well you're not warm." I said indicating that he didn't have a fever and that he would be able to work through the rest of his shift but his sad puppy dog eyes gazed at me unforgivingly._

_"Oh but it really hurts Tess..." he mumbled softly and sighed gently. I smiled and stroked his cheek with my palm before I stood up on my toes and kissed his forehead softly._

_"There, better?" I asked gently and smiled shyly; Evan looked down at me, smiled a little but then resumed his awkward pout and sighed._

_"A little..." he leaned in a little closer._

_"I'll know what'll help..." I whispered, looking into his eyes suggestively, watching his eyes glow like hot steel. My finger circled round the top button of his shirt, before I checked the watch on my wrist._

_"You can have the rest of the shift off!" I smiled cheekily and much to Evan's disappointment I leaned over to flick the kettle on._

_"Hey?" he asked a little bemused, feeling another headache come on his rubbed his head again._

_"Well there's only about 20 minutes left, so you..." I pulled out the shiny biscuit tin that was the station's bickie kitty, heaved off the lid with much effort and handed Evan a twenty dollar note. "...can head off home, to get some much needed rest and buy us some Panadol on the way. Make sure you bring it in tomorrow." I finished with a smile and closed the biscuit tin with its unusual shaped lid and shoved it back in the drawer it should have come from._

_"You sure?" Evan asked amiably._

_"Yeah, just don't make a habit of getting those headaches..." I was about to tell him that'd he'd caught me on a good day and that I was just being lenient because he did look legitimately sick but he cut me of with a tender kiss to my cheek._

_"Thanks" he whispered and feeling a warm hazy feeling grow over me I couldn't help but smile._

_"Don't go telling the others; Jo will spit chips if she ever finds out!" I warned but Evan had already swung his coat over his shoulder and gave me a quick wave before he headed off. I was left to clean up his mess, naturally._

* * *

"You were rather close to Evan?" Lucy suggested rather than stated, implying that I had a relationship with one of my colleagues where there simply wasn't one could have had her in shreds of embarrassment, this way she could weed everything out of me, bit by bit. 

"He was my colleague." was my stern and blunt answer. My head reached up and brushed my hair back over my ear, she knew I was lying. Oh what was I meant to say? That I was passionately in love with him? That I couldn't help but feel weak whenever he was close? That he made me feel like I was the only person that mattered? Even if I didn't, Lucy had her way of knowing.

"You had no amorous feelings for him whatsoever?" Lucy asked leaning in that bit closer, she crossed her legs. One sleek leg over the other, she crushed the thickly creased line down the front of her pant leg. I wouldn't get away with it; if I lied fragrantly I'd look stupid.

"I suppose I did." I said reticently, staring down at my hands again, weaving my fingers into a difficult plait.

"You suppose?" she was good at twisting your arm.

"Okay, I loved him." I finally managed to blurt out before I self destructed completely, I shut my eyes tightly. Every time I told myself that I loved him I couldn't help but hurt, it was a deep relentless, un-mitigating hurt that consumed you entirely until you felt the need to cry.

I felt Lucy sigh with honest relief, she was getting somewhere, I wasn't though. I felt exactly the same as when I stepped into this room; cold, awkward, unforgiving, rabid, hungered, disfigured and aching. I sighed with a heavy heart and Lucy felt my ravenous pain.

"Did he know you loved him?" she asked gently, not that it was any of her business I still felt compelled to answer.

"Oh, he did..."

_

* * *

It was dark when the moon glistened over the deep navy clouds, you couldn't really tell what they looked like but I thought they'd rather resemble Persian fairy floss, delicate and thin, with torn edges that looked like the whimsically delicate fibres on a freshly torn apart cotton ball. I'd always loved clouds, and most of all watching them but tonight I'd have to be content with the moon. He glistened like a fanatically polished boot. The stark clouds across his cheeky face always formed the biggest smile. I'd always smile back, he was my moon, at least I thought of him that way because I spent most of tonight admiring him, in the thick jungle of dark that was the night sky. _

_The stars like freshly cut diamonds, sparkled gently around the moon's figure, lighting the sky like birthday candles would a dark room, or plain golden Christmas lights the branches of a Christmas tree. If you watched carefully enough you would see them flicker every now and then or watch them dance as the sky shifted right._

_I sighed, there I was; my cosy red blanket and I, on the rain frosted lawn of the Mt. Thomas football field. How did I get here? I don't remember but somehow it was the best place you could ever get to watch the stars (when it was conveniently deserted of course) and I loved this place for that sole reason._

_My eyelids like sandbags weighed heavy over my eyes and for a moment or two I actually let my thoughts drift to unremembered memories until which I felt quite lifeless, slowly and aimlessly floating about in sleep until I felt the heavy thud of two thick boots, treading on heavenly red blanket. My heart raced and my mind flicked through possible scenarios and dimly lit faces while I lay perfectly still on the red blanket unable to open my eyes. _

_A familiar smell comforted me, the smell of sheep's skin; I felt it warm against my neck._

_"Hey, what are doin' out here by yourself?" I sighed and opened my eyes; I could just see the dim shadows hide most of his friendly features while the moon reflected off the tip of his hair. I guessed by the voice anyway that it was Evan; how he knew I was here I had no idea._

_I didn't reply to his question, it was a stupid question to ask, if you knew me. But secretly I did forgive him for his ignorance; I didn't expect him to know the inner workings of my mind, although sometimes I thought he had a well detailed manual._

_I felt him lie down beside me and his hand reached out for mine, squeezing it softly. Feeling a little more exhausted then usual I tried to shut my eyes and fall yet again into the peaceful ambience that was sleep but Evan brushed my fringe away from my eyes and the feel of his warm fingertips against my forehead distracted me. His radiant warmth drew me to him and I rest my head on his shoulder. Evan stroked my head with his palm gently. I loved the feel of his jacket against my cheek, so warm and pleasantly sheep smelling._

_"It's a nice night for star gazing." he pointed out bluntly and the hint of apprehension in his voice made me think he didn't want to talk about stars but something a little more deep._

_"What's wrong?" I asked smiling and I opened my eyes to gaze into his, even though I couldn't see them that well I imagined what they looked like in great detail. Like smoothed over blue crystal reflecting the sun, his eyes; tranquil and perfect. Edged with the most fantastic deep turquoise, his eyes were as intriguing as Chihuly's glass and I could never stop gazing mindlessly at them, they were too entrancing. His beautiful eyes were a part of him that was to be forever etched in my memory._

_"I've been thinking..." Evan started and I looked again to the stars._

_"Oh no!" I said mockingly a cheeky smile lit up on my face._

_"Hey!" Evan was to say before his voice took on a rather serious tone. "Well I have, been thinking that is..." stumbling on his sentences I knew this had to be something he was uncomfortable speaking about, that made me more apprehensive than anything._

_"Well, spit it out!" I said with a gentle ring to my voice, that made him chuckle._

_"You know how today we met Anna..." he started; puzzled by which Anna he meant I referred to today's case._

_"Anna, the kleptomaniac?" I asked thinking what Evan could possibly want to talk about Anna for._

_"That's the one. You know what she said before she died, about telling those you love that you love them and that you mean it, before it's too late..." I didn't know what Evan was trying to imply, in fact Anna's situation didn't seem to bother me at all. Jo was in tears over Anna's death but I couldn't help but scoff. Anna was a pitiful woman; her selfishness was crude and violent. She tore apart everyone that cared for her and waited for them to shrivel up and die. Her statement would never make sense._

_"I guess, why do ask?" I was a little intrigued. _

_"Because I love you Tess and I know you love me and the thing that really gets to me is you've never said it to me."_

_"Said what?" I asked a little confused._

_"Said that you love me." that would have had to been the only time I realised that Evan really did care what I thought of him and my lack of acknowledgement tore him to pieces._

_"So, why haven't you?" he asked genuinely feeling dejected. I couldn't think of anything remotely plausible, in fact right then, it came over me that Evan pinned for some kind of reassurance that I did love him._

_"But I don't have to tell you, you already know..." that didn't explain anything. I could remember how astonishingly wonderful it felt to hear him say 'I love you' and it hurt me knowing that he couldn't feel that same feeling._

_"Do I?" he asked honestly and quiet discomfort built a lump in my throat._

_"It's complicated." I muttered soothingly, I didn't want to fight; I enjoyed his company too much._

_"Okay." he sighed knowing that there might come a day where I'd open up and tell him everything but for now he'd have to wait._

_Gently lifting up my head his took away his shoulder and sat up on the red blanket, I could feel him looking at me and I felt horribly guilty._

"_You'll be okay, here by yourself?" Half of me wanted him to stay and the other half was too bruised with guilt to need him here._

"_Yeah" I said and Evan picked up my hand squeezed it gently again and picked himself up and disappeared._

* * *

"You couldn't tell him you loved him." Lucy stated this time. She almost felt appalled for me and it didn't help the compelling feeling of sick remorse. I knew I couldn't tell him, as much as I wanted to it just never came out. 

"Do you know why you couldn't, Tess? Was it because at that point in time you really didn't love Evan?" Lucy suggested something disgustingly inappropriate, of course I loved Evan.

"No, I did love him…" I reassured myself with that statement and Lucy sighed gently and looked at her watch, with a look of hesitation she pulled out a piece of yellow paper from within the file that sat at the floor of the other coach.

"I'm sorry Tess but I'm afraid that has to be all for today." There was an awkward longing in Lucy's voice, as if she didn't want me to leave and strangely enough I felt exactly the same.

"Here's a piece of yellow paper, what I'll get you to do at home is write down all the men that you did or have formed relationships with." Lucy smiled while I folded up the piece of yellow paper and slid it into my pocket. It was a strange task that I was unwilling to do but as I stepped out of her office I couldn't help but feel that I had to.

"See you tomorrow Tess." Lucy mentioned and I turned back to try and see her face but it was covered by a frail man's figure that walked slowly to her door.

Right then I told myself I wouldn't come back.


	2. Chapter 2

Here's the second chapter, it may seem a little dull but I am trying to space out this fic so you don't have to still well into the night reading one chapter :)! For those of you who are a little lost, I did forget to mention this at the begining but this is based on season 10, just after Tess marries Josh, with one exception, she was never actually pregnant. That's why there's no mention of bub, I know...sorry!

Well, thanks to all my lovely reviewers (Sam, Paige, pantherfan and Elicia)! I would thank you each in person but aparently I can't type up review responses at the begining of chapter so if you do want me to reply either send me a signed review or add on your email to the end of the annoymous one. :)

Just to quote what Sam said, "This is AMAZING!" Wow, and that was only after the first chapter. I do hope you like the rest! Enjoy.

Chapter Two

How was it that I found myself sitting on that black leather button couch again, a crumpled piece of yellow paper in my hand, waiting for Lucy to sit down just in front of me, her scrutinisingly brilliant eyes stalking me?

"Ahh you did that task I gave you, great!" Lucy chimed. I let the piece of paper sit weakly on my lap and Lucy greeted me cordially, with the same greeting that I'd hear for the next week or so.

"So Tess, how are you today?" she asked, it was almost cliché.

"Not too bad." was my sordid answer, I lied again and Lucy knew. The thing she didn't know was that I spent most of last night scribbling out half of the names on my list, until at one point in time I bore a hole through the paper's delicate skin. With frustrated fury I scrunched up the paper into a tight yellow ball and threw it across the room. It would stay there until I felt the need to write down Evan's name. I'd dreaded to, I didn't want to but I had to.

"That's good to hear, I thought you might feel a little better after yesterday?" I hated the way she asked questions because I had to answer them and with each answer she tore into the delicate enigma that was me.

"Yeah, I think I might feel a little better, I guess it's good having someone to talk to..." I said that so she'd feel better about herself but Lucy was too smart to be fooled so easily. She smiled pleasantly and rubbed her hands together briefly. She caught me looking at my list, gliding my finger across Evan's name.

"You might be wondering why I asked you to write all those names down." Lucy said and she couldn't have been any more right, I did want to know why I had to go to the effort of writing them down, when I was doing it seemed pointless, it still seemed that way.

"Yeah, actually I was wondering about that." I smiled a little to her and her joyously kind eyes lit up against the warmth of the sunlight in her room.

There was something about her office that made me feel the tiniest bit of sentiment towards it. It may have been the comfortable coloured walls, or the soft smelling books, whatever it was I loved it.

"Well, I thought I might help you figure out why you couldn't tell Evan that you loved him." Lucy smiled gracefully and I felt a tinge of evasiveness. Why would it be any of her business why I couldn't tell Evan I loved him? It's not like it mattered anymore, not now anyway. I don't see how her stupid revelation could make me feel any better. I was just about to tell her so but the glint of sunlight through her glowing carrot hair made me look into her eyes. She was such a lovely woman; she only wanted what was best for me. Okay, she won...this time.

"Okay" was my simply reply. She felt my unwilling recognition and I handed her the torn and crumpled list, it rest in her lap now.

"The first person you listed is your father, Mark..." Lucy stated and I nodded slowly, watching her carefully and what she was to say next.

"Tell me a little about him Tess." That was the sentence I least wanted to hear. I knew nothing of my father. Apart from being the means to which I came into this world, he played no role in my life at all; in fact sometimes I wondered if I ever had a father at all, I certainly don't remember having one.

"I don't know much about him, he left when I was 3." that was virtually all I could say but Lucy had her delicate way of prodding gently into the unknown.

"Do you remember anything about him, at all?" she asked kindly.

"From what Mum told me he was a useless druggie and that was all I was to ever think of him. He left Mum and the 3 of us alone, without any money or any place to go. Mum wasn't any better but at least she stuck around. I haven't seen him since; I don't think I want to either."

"I understand..." Lucy said softly. Understand? How could she possibly understand? From this point of view Lucy looked like she had all a mentally sane person could ever crave for, a family, a stable one at that. I had no family, no real family. There was never anything to look forward to, never anything to dream about. It was only until I joined the Force that I ever saw any glimmer of hope in my unfortunate life.

"Okay, now tell me how you feel about your father." asked Lucy, she scurried around and managed to find a pen in a heap of unwanted files in the corner of her desk. Now it sat sturdily in her hand, the glare from its shiny plastic surface made my eyes hurt. It was there to fulfil the rather devious task of writing down the conclusions Lucy came to after what I'd say next. This in mind I thought of her question carefully. What to say of my father? Abusive, uncaring, apathetic and irresponsible. A vile despicable shadow of a man who served no purpose in this world expect to pollute it with his corrupted soul. I thought a little longer, the silent pause worried Lucy.

"If you were to think of one word to describe him, what would it be?" she asked.

"Selfish." a little word, so softly uttered.

"Selfish?" Lucy asked, again. It seemed that my short, non eager answers weren't enough for Lucy.

"He was never there, if he was to care about someone, it would only be himself." I stopped and watched Lucy's eyes flicker with interest, "He abandoned us, he abandoned me."

"He abandoned you, keep that in mind." Lucy said as her eyes scrolled down the list.

"Okay, now tell me about Aidan."

Aidan, I had to picture him in my mind to remember him more clearly.

"Just one of a string of hopeless boyfriends, he only wanted one thing and when he got it he felt he could do with me whatever he pleased, so he just left me." I sighed dismally. Lucy picked up my vague sense of awkwardness.

"You trusted him, didn't you Tess? And then he just abandoned you."

I nodded hopelessly and Lucy knew there was no need to push this any further. And after skimming though a couple of names that had no real significance she came across one that did.

"Okay, What about Jack?" she asked watching me as a deluge of red flushed over my face. It had been years since I last remember hearing the name Jack. I made sure I had erased every little bit of him from my memory, now I could barely picture his face.

"He was a constable of mine." was my simple reply; I didn't really need to say anymore.

"You got involved with Jack?" the questions were really starting to irritate me but they urged me to reply.

"Yes, I shouldn't have, but I did." I sighed and briefly looked down across the room to Lucy shoes. She was wearing bright blue ones today, with thin and lanky laces. Against the burgundy carpet they looked too out of place.

"Why do you say that Tess? Why couldn't you have a relationship with Jack?" Lucy pried, a stern look of concern on her face.

"He was younger than me and he was my colleague. Getting involved with colleagues just doesn't work." that was my excuse to Evan from day one and when I said it now it seemed pitiful and stupid.

"I see..." Lucy sighed and watched momentarily as I wringed my hands tightly, depriving them of blood. A spark of anger blazed through me and I had the sudden urge to scream.

"What's Jack got to do with Evan anyway? I hate Jack!" I muttered bitterly to Lucy who looked a little distant. She crossed her arms over her chest and just as quickly uncrossed them, sighed and looked at me again.

"What did Jack ever do to hurt you?" Lucy asked gently. That was a stupid question. What didn't Jack do to hurt me?

"He got charged for murder and he lied to me." I answered angrily; I didn't look up to Lucy. I buried my eyes into the floor.

"Which bit hurt you more?" she asked again.

"The fact that he lied to me, I trusted him! He stood there in front of me and lied right to my face. I lost all hope in him then." I could feel the bitter pain of anger in my chest. I sighed heavily to make it go away.

"He betrayed you, right? Then he left you all alone. He abandoned you." I nodded as Lucy spoke; it was almost freakish how she knew that.

"And Josh, what about him?" I felt sick when I heard Lucy mention Josh.

"What's Josh got to do with this?" My eyes widened and the sick feeling rose to my throat. I clenched my stomach gently with my arm.

"Just bare with me..." she almost whispered. I ran my tongue over the back of my teeth. Clasped my mouth shut tightly and refused to speak.

"Tess?"

"He's my ex-husband...was my ex-husband." I said with much reluctance.

"This is the marriage you annulled. You don't mind me asking why?" Lucy asked. Her lips twisted awkwardly.

"He was gay. He never told me. I found out after we caught him stealing pethidine for his gay lover." I spat coldly. Lucy's eyes widened and she tried to conceal her embarrassment.

"Oh Tess..." she sighed painfully. I looked away, I didn't need the pity.

"Why did you marry him?" How many times had I heard that question?

"I don't know..." was my hesitant reply and Lucy looked to the ground in disappointment.

"He hurt you Tess. You put all you faith in a man that you thought you could trust. He robbed you of all self confidence and trust. He abandoned you." Lucy was right. Josh was a disgusting man. I bit my lip harshly. I should have married Evan.

"See Tess, all these men in you life, your father, your boyfriends, Jack and Josh. They all have one thing in common..." Lucy started but I cut her off. I knew the answer already.

"They abandoned me..." Lucy nodded sorrowfully.

"That's why I couldn't tell Evan I loved him?" I asked the question this time.

"Every man on this list that I've read out thus far Tess, has hurt you in some way. You grew up with the ingrained fear of being abandoned. You knew that if you got too close, that any man you loved would hurt you. And why wouldn't you think that? The statistics prove that any relationship you formed would end in betrayal. You would be left alone and you hated that feeling." said Lucy, her hands clasped together and she leant in my direction. I felt a lone tear crawl down my cheek. I was pathetic.

"The last name on your list...Evan." she looked at my handwriting. Evan's name was written in tiny letters down the very bottom of the page. She had to squint to see it.

"How did Evan hurt you Tess?" I thought about that question carefully. Pictures of his face rushed through my mind like the speeding trees on a highway.

"He didn't. He did exactly the opposite. He loved me." I whispered that last bit and my eyes swelled.

"But you couldn't tell him that you loved him. You were scared that he would hurt you..." Lucy stated plainly.

"He'd never do that!" I said defensively, looking harshly at her. What was she trying to say? Evan wasn't anything like Josh or Jack or my father. He was completely different, one in a million. Whenever I strove to push him away he'd fight back just as hard.

"He was different though, wasn't he Tess?" Lucy asked and her mellow lips curved into a delicate smile. I sighed and looked down to her neatly folded hands.

"He was always there for me..."

_

* * *

I slammed the green locker door angrily behind me and the doorframe took the full impact of my anger. It made the lockers shake. I was still so bitter. Feelings of fury, antagonism, irritation and hurt racked through my chest until I could bear it no longer. My fist clenched I hit the door of my locker until the skin on my knuckles tore away and my wrist throbbed relentlessly. _

_Hearing the commotion someone must have thought it was a good idea to follow me in. I watched the door handle turn and I quickly opened my locker and grabbed my towel. Wiping away my fierce tears I looked at myself in the mirror on the side. My eyes looked the way I felt, fed up and irascible._

_Closing the door of my locker I saw Evan's quiet figure at the door. I didn't face him. I didn't have the guts too. I felt so ashamed. I couldn't bear to look at Evan without thinking that I hurt him. Even if it was out of self defence, my plan of a "safe" marriage just crumbled to bits and I was too proud to acknowledge that I was wrong. I blamed everything on Josh; I didn't consider that I too contributed to my own downfall._

_I pressed my head hard against the cold steel of the lockers, in hope that Evan would get the message and leave me alone. I winced hard, squeezed my eyes and let my bitter anger run through me. Past my throat and chest and into the pit of my poor stomach._

_Evan didn't get the message and like an ominous rain cloud he approached me without a word. He placed a hand on my shoulder. The feel of friendly warmth soaked deeply into my shoulder. I closed my eyes and felt the aching beat of my heart._

_"Tess..." he whispered soothingly, his other hand lay on my opposite shoulder. He came so close that I could feel his warm breath tingle the soft skin of my neck. His forehead gently pressed against the side of mine he whispered into my ear._

_"You okay Tess?" I closed my eyes and let his warm breath flood through my hair until I could bare his closeness no longer. _

_I began to turn around so he let go of me. He looked at me forlornly, his head tilted to one side and he eyes glistened pensively, their brilliant blue, now a glistening grey. I could see him feel my pain._

_He reached out to hold my hands in his; he was so gentle and meek._

_He pulled his hands down to his sides and showed his palms, indicative of my need for a hug. I didn't refuse; I wanted him to hold me. _

_I wrapped my arms around his waist and rest my head against his sturdy shoulder. He was always so strong, my pillar of strength._

_He held me tightly and I felt the most overwhelming need to cry. It was a terrifying feeling, I hated crying._

_Evan felt the wet tears penetrate his shirt and my angrily sobbing body gave hint that I felt alone. I felt the need to apologise._

_"Sorry..." I choked on the thick mucus in my throat. I thought Evan would pull away, he didn't._

_"Shh..." he whispered, " its okay." It wasn't 'okay'. I'd just ruined whatever remained of my selfish dignity. Half of me rejoiced that I was no longer restrained to a doomed marriage with Josh and the other half ached because I hurt myself so much._

_"I feel so stupid!" I whined to Evan, he still held me dearly._

_"You weren't to know Josh was gay. Believe me, it took everyone by surprise." I looked up at him for a brief moment. Funny, I thought he'd rub my nose in it. Tell me that I was insane for marrying Josh or that he knew this was coming._

_"You aren't gonna say 'I told you so'?" I asked softly. In my opinion he should of. I deserved every bitter and spiteful comment he could think of. He looked at me dismally._

_"No. Why would I say that?"_

_"Because I should have married you." I said, another painful tear dug into the flesh of my cheek. He smiled softly._

_"Yeah, you should've. Doesn't mean you had to. I only said that because I was jealous. I loved you and it looked as if you didn't care..." said Evan and with one hand he wiped away the tear on my cheek. "That hurt me." his honest words dugs holes in my heart._

_"I'm sorry, I never set out to deliberately hurt you..." I tried to explain away the sorrow lodged in my throat. The hurt in his eyes made me bleed with guilt._

_"I know" he sighed and brought his palm up to my cheek, it blazed warmth. I looked down to the floor, not game enough to look into his audacious eyes. _

_"Do you still love me?" I asked the question that I feared to hear the answer to. He breathed in deeply and pulling me towards him he pressed his forehead to mine and closed his eyes. The tip of his nose rubbed against the bridge of mine. I relished the comfort of his ardent warmth._

_"I do." he whispered. I felt horrible. How could a man possibly still love a woman like me? It was an arduous task; I could hear the deliberation in his voice._

_"Even after everything I've done?" I asked solemnly._

_"I'll never stop loving you. You gotta put a little faith in me Tess. I love you more than you think." he said that with as much earnest as I could stand, it melted the chaos in my heart._

_"Don't worry about Josh; this'll all be over before you know it. You're an amazing woman Tess; don't let him get to you." If it was only as easy as it sounded._

_I didn't want him to leave me but he brushed away my fringe and kissed my forehead before he let me go. He knew that I'd take no chance of letting a curious Jo spot us._

_I felt so hopeless without him. Robbed of the warmth and comfort of being wrapped in his arms, I smiled to myself weakly._

_"You idiot Tess, you should have married him." I whispered to myself softly once he'd left the room."_

* * *

"An ardent man." Lucy said simply, I could sense the warmth in her voice. "He obviously cared so much about you." Lucy looked down to my hands that had hidden themselves within the folds of my jacket. A hint of curiosity flushed through her and she straightened herself briskly, letting her fingers brushed under her lip and then stoke her chin. 

"Why didn't you marry Evan?" her spark of curiosity was my ultimate nightmare. I hated thinking about what I did. I scrunched up my nose briefly and pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth, the thick metallic taste in my mouth faded away.

"I think..." my thoughts faded away before I got to mention them. I don't know why I didn't marry Evan, I wanted to but I just never did.

"Perhaps you were too afraid that he would hurt you?" suggested Lucy, her hands too found refuge in the deep pockets of her thick woollen coat. I didn't know what to think.

"Why would Evan want to hurt me?" I asked Lucy, an overwhelming sense of guilt crept up on me. Did I really push Evan away because I was scared that he'd hurt me? Was I truly that selfish? I sighed sorrowfully and I picked at the stitching on my jeans.

"Evan wouldn't hurt me, he loved me too much. In fact he cherished me!" I said confidently and after a while a little smiled crept over my face. I envisioned his face in the back of my mind with the most complex of detail; the way his eyes lit up whenever I smiled his auburn brown hair that I loved to ruffle into a complete mess, his intoxicatingly gentle smile and his pale red supple lips. I sighed hopelessly and erased the gently dreamy look off my face, the one Lucy noticed almost immediately.

"He must have been a great friend to have around. After Josh left you, did he stick around and help you get back on your feet?" Lucy asked her questions as if she already knew the answers.

"Yeah, he was always there to lend an ear. There'd be nights where he'd just sit and listen to me babble on and on about how stupid I felt. It felt good, having someone who'd just listen." A profound sense of emptiness built up in the pit of my poor tummy, I swallowed hard to stop the overwhelming feeling of nausea. Lucy looked at me as I squeezed my eyes shut for a brief moment. Seeing that there wasn't much she could do she hastily moved on.

"A true confidante." Lucy smiled cheerfully; I watched the glow of her carrot hair light up her cheeks like candescent light globes.

"There wasn't anything we didn't share. I grew to like his persistent nature, I did my best to tell him all I could and he in turn kept nothing from me..." I cut my sentence off short and looked up to see the creamy white ceiling of Lucy's office, a stark flash of familiarity scolded my mind. It reminded me exactly of the white hospital room ceiling, almost the exact same shade. My eyes quickly shifted to catch Lucy's inquisitive gaze.

"But there was something he kept from you, something that you didn't find out 'till Tuesday..." Lucy might as well have told the story herself, she knew far too much without really knowing anything.

"I thought he trusted me..."

_

* * *

"Mt. Thomas 800 to Mt. Thomas 900..." the blur of the two-way distracted me. I was meant to be filing whatever it was that I found on my desk but to be honest I'd spent most of the little time I had alone worrying about Evan. He was never one to be sick, let alone spew up half his breakfast. But recently he seemed to have the most relentless headaches. Even though he reassured me that they were nothing to worry about, I couldn't help but worry. And this morning when I saw the lifeless look in his eyes mixed with the most overwhelming sense of exhaustion, I felt sick. _

_Looking up from the little scribble that I had made on the page in front of me I went to answer the two-way._

_"Mt. Thomas 900 to Mt. Thomas 800..." I sighed; my heavy heart beat slowly and methodically._

_"Sarge, we've door knocked the entire block! No one's seen or heard anything!" rang the annoyed tone of Jo's voice. I would have felt sorry for her but I was still wracked with an overwhelming sense of pain. _

_"Umm, well then you might as well just come back..." I replied, my voice uneasy and frightened._

_"Sarge is everything alright?" asked a concerned Jo. She could tell that I felt lifeless and cold and her tinge of concern gave off the warmth of a gentle candle flame. I couldn't let her figure out that her headstrong Sarge was really as brittle weak glass. I collected myself up and put Evan to the back of my mind._

_"Yeah, fine." I replied simply with confidence and Jo ended the short conversation we had._

_I tried my best to stop feeling so anxious about Evan but that only lasted for a sliver of a moment. I felt stupid really. He shouldn't have meant this much to me but I couldn't help but love him; he had that affect on me. I'd never want anything to hurt him, without him my life would cease to exist._

_In my last efforts to concentrate I glided my eyes over cursive text, not really reading anything at all and once I heard the phone ring I was glad I finally had something distracting to do._

_"Mt. Thomas Police. Sergeant Gallagher speaking..." I waited for a reply. A familiar worried voice greeted my ears. A frightened Chris on the other end managed to speak at the speed of light. Her words collided together forming a spiel of gibberish that was impossible to understand._

_"Hey, hang on Chris, slow down a little!" I said in the most soothing voice I could muster at that moment and Chris dulled down her voice, speaking as slowly and clearly as she could while her shocked throat constricted her from breathing._

_"Tess, you better come down quickly. It's Evan, there's something wrong..." My eyes widened as she mentioned his name and a dull sense of sick hit my stomach with the strength of at least twelve bullets._

_"Chris..." I said warningly, "what is it? What's wrong with Evan?" My heart pounded in my chest and I could feel its ring in my ears._

_"I've called an ambulance but I..." Chris didn't get to finish her sentence, the ambulance must have arrived. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I suddenly felt bitterly cold. _

_Without warning anyone I swiped the keys off my desk and ran for the door..._

* * *

I would have kept going; there was more to that story that needed to be told but the thick deluge of tears caught in my throat as I spoke and eventually I couldn't say anything more. It felt belittling sitting there, bawling my eyes out in front of Lucy, who for that past moment sat inertly beside me, a box of elegantly patterned tissues on her lap. 

She rubbed my shoulder gently and beckoned me to relax.

"It's okay Tess, that'll be all for today. You can go home and sleep it off. There's no need to worry about it for the moment." she saw my immense eager to keep going, to tell her exactly what happened that Tuesday afternoon but she was right, I needed to relax, better still I needed sleep. I closed my eyes briefly, letting the last of my frustrated tears fall slowly down my cheeks.

Lucy's hand pat mine gently displaying her affectionate comfort. Her hand held out just near mine, I gave her my passionately scrunched up and brutally torn tissues.

Walking me to the door she hid against the doorframe and smiled gently as I turned to leave.

"Same time tomorrow Tess..." she called out and I with my head bowed shuffled out of her clinic into the blazing blue sky before me.


	3. Chapter 3

So sorry for the long wait but here it is, the third chapter to a many chaptered fic. If you get the feeling that things are a bit slow I do apologise I have the relentless need to describe everything, its an extremely bad habit that just happens to coincide with me being visual spatial.

Special thanks to my lovely reviewers( Paige, panthersfan, Elicia, Sam) you never cease to bring the warmest smile to my face. And my dearest thanks to Ella whom I didn't thank before but she is indeed a dedicated reviewer that is my panacea for the utter chaos that is my life. Thanks Ella!

My thanks to Fitzgerald, mon douche and Monsieur Georges de Brassens pour son poem, "La Parapluie" Je te remerci, ton poem était fantastic et vraiment stimulant. Merci.

Enjoy!

Chapter Three

Her room had a vehement glow of eeriness about it. The striking sun flooded through her window in great radiant spheres that lit up the dark red curtains and gave the room its eerie red complexion.

Covered in a hazy cloud of Lucy's strong perfume I looked past the open curtains through the delicate glass window. In what seemed another world, the whimsical branches of the willow tree play house to a lonely robin. He sat on the delicate branches bobbing light-heartedly in the astringent wind, not a care in the world. Carefully assorting his plumage, the tiny thing shrilled a blissful tune, full of fervency and awe. His little eyes cherishing the wonderful existence he inhabited. I watched him gaze wondrously through a window to me, a soul bereft of happiness and consumed in solitude. He tilted his head as if to ask what the matter was, I smiled and a sudden gust of wind tore him away.

"Morning Tess..." Lucy said dragging the last 's' in my name while I tore my eyes away from the window and looked at her.

"Good Morning Lucy" I replied as best as I possibly could. I felt my mind search for the answer to her next question.

"And how are you feeling today Tess?" Lucy crossed her arms over her waist in pleasant discomfort but I wasn't going to lie today. Today I'd answer her cordial morning greeting with as much honesty as I possibly could muster.

"Actually, I don't feel too well. I don't really know how to explain it but I seem so exhausted." Gazing up from a page of notes in front of her Lucy looked bewildered that I didn't repeat my bland and mundane answer; instead I chose to open up a little. She sighed, relieved. If she looked hard enough, which she did, she would have seen the answer to my problem. I was exhausted and I had reason to be.

"How are your sleeping patterns of late Tess?" she asked, a flush of bright red concern skimmed across her forehead and jolted my heart a little.

"I wouldn't really call it a pattern..." I replied, my fingernails dug deep into soft textured leather.

"I see. You didn't sleep very well last night I gather?" It still puzzled me why Lucy needed the reassurance of my answers to questions she already understood.

"No, not really" I wouldn't say why, I didn't have to. Lucy smiled gently as she verbalised my thoughts.

"You spent all of last night thinking of Tuesday, of what happened to Evan..." my nod confirmed her answer and she sighed hopelessly, avoiding my gaze.

"Tess..." Lucy felt now to be the right time to begin, more so continue with the sordid tale of Tuesday afternoon but I hesitated.

Looking up to her with an expression of bitter fear, she popped down the shiny black pen she was holding, with a thud it landed on her heaped notes. From her lap the folder was almost thrown to the floor and Lucy sat intently looking at me, her full attention focussed on what I was to say. This made me more nervous, a sudden surge of watered down sick floated about in my stomach and when I opened my mouth to breathe, I simply couldn't.

Lucy saw my hands begin to shake and my glazed over eyes, bleeding with anxiety. She quietly began to fret; shuffling herself closer to me she placed herself neatly on the edge of the chair and took in her hands, my freakishly shaking palm.

"We'll take this one step at a time Tess." her reassuring voice, culled the thick obstruction in my throat. I breathed in deeply and looked up to the ceiling for mere support; I didn't want Lucy to see the hurt in my eyes. I didn't want the pity.

"I didn't know what to think, I was just so scared..."

_

* * *

"Chris!" I yelled to the limp looking figure at the pub door. Her fingers in her mouth she gnawed at her fingernails with petrified worry. Her usually animated expression on her face was filled with the most intense fear. I ran up to her quickly, nearly tripping over myself._

_Chris' hand grabbed my shoulders and she held me upright. Her face became a bland white colour, drained of all life._

_"Where is he?" I asked Chris, not noticing that petrified tears were curving their way, slowly to my jaw._

_"Tess...I...I didn't know what to do, he just..." Chris staggered over her words and it filled me the ominous feeling of apprehension._

_"Is he okay?" I asked again, swallowing hard. If anything were to happen to Evan I'd...I don't know what I'd do!_

_Chris combed the red mess of her hair with her fingers, brushing stray bits back over her ears. She sighed heavily and containing the most tenacious anger made her eyes bulge red. She waved in the way of the pub door and motioned for me to go in. At a situation like this, my copper's instinct would have me run into the pub as quick as anything but somehow this time I just froze._

_I looked to the ground and my shoe scratched out invisible circles on the concrete, I tried to dull the inevitable ache in my stomach but it didn't work. Chris in the meantime had sat down dismally on the stairs, her head in her hands. I stood there stunned; there was never a day where I hadn't seen a remarkably strong Chris, through the thickest of crisis's she'd be the only person with a positive take on events. Today all she did was sigh._

_"He's with the medicos, they've been a while..." Chris muffled raising her head from her hands. I nodded softly and we both jolted a little at the sound of stretcher wheels._

_Chris bolted to the door holding it open for the two paramedics. The first medico out the door looked behind his shoulder and gave me a worried smile. I gulped._

_"Evan..." I whispered as his limp and lifeless body lay uncomfortably on the cold metal stretcher. Against his bright red t-shirt lay the most revolting puddle of beige vomit; his forehead glistened from a downpour of salty sweat. He looked exhausted._

_The second medico emerged from the pub pushing the stretcher with one hand and in the other she held up an I.V. bag, high above her shoulder. They stopped the stretcher for a while and both Chris and I gathered at its edge, clinging desperately to its metal bars._

_"He's been sedated." informed the rather tired paramedic noticing the utter shock that stained the surface of my cheeks._

_"Sedated?" I asked startled, looking at Chris who'd become all the more pale, so pale that her hair against her skin became a nasty vibrant hue._

_"It'll settle him down for the while; he's just had a rather nasty episode of convulsions..." the other paramedic replied as the first kicked back the wheel to the front part of the stretcher in hope of getting Evan down the stairs. My heart sank and with my shaking hand I rubbed my forehead angrily. Why didn't I just take him to the hospital? Why?_

_The woman paramedic looked forlornly at me; an empathetic half smile crawled across her face._

_"Could one of you accompany us down to the hospital?" she asked, her eyes glistened hopefully against the starkly dismal sunlight. I looked at Chris who I knew had to return to the pub and so I nodded gently and the medico smiled in return._

_Just before they carted him away I managed to squeeze Evan's warm hand gently, a desolate feeling of bitter guilt overcame me right then. If anything were to happen to him, it'd be completely my fault._

* * *

Lucy tilted her head to one side and watched me painfully withhold any trace of unbearable emotion. I tried my best to put on the most poker face I could. Depriving myself of eliciting any kind emotional response I just sat there, completely still. 

Lucy looked the picture of worry, after jotting down a couple of illiterate notes she placed her notepad back down on her knees and looked keenly at me.

"Why would it be your fault Tess?" she asked, her creamy white skin looked almost hauntingly at me and her bright sparkling eyes like emerald stood out in the most peculiar way.

"Sorry?" I didn't understand her question.

"Why would it be your fault if something ever happened to Evan?" she asked again, a little hint of profound sadness came through her meek voice. I lowered my head a little and felt my heart sting with the most abhorrent guilt. I closed my eyes as a thick dizziness overcame me, blackening my vision with its atrocious black spots. I felt sick.

"Tess?" I felt Lucy grab my arm with worry. Moving me to fall back against the coach she then got up quickly. When I next opened my eyes I saw Lucy hold a glass of water in front of me, when I waved it away I found it sat on the table next to me.

"Are you okay?" Lucy asked, her eyebrows reached the top of her forehead with worry. I nodded in response and turned to think of her question.

"I was his Sarge. I was obliged to look out for him..."

_

* * *

I paced the small, dark corridor of the kitchenette in anguish. It was late enough for the pub to be closed and yet I still stood gruffly by the sink of the kitchenette desperately trying to make myself another coffee. Anything to kill the annoying tiredness, the aching pressure on the back of my eyelids would have been sorely appreciated. _

_Stirring feverishly to make the sugar dissolve I slurped the piping hot coffee, it scolded my tongue. With a vehement sigh I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and sucked away the pain._

_I could have killed him! I threw the spoon into the sink and with it I poured out the rest of my freshly brewed coffee. Tapping my fingers brashly on the bench top I'd lost any trace of sensible reason, instead my soul filled with the most fervent feeling of apprehension._

_I'd call his mobile number again for the umpteenth time, pushing the buttons fiercely into their sockets I recounted the number that I'd memorised by now._

_"The person you are trying to reach is unavailable, to leave..." I slammed the phone receiver down and it jolted off the hook._

_For all the anger I felt there had to be a tiny portion of me that felt a profound sense of weakness._

_"You stupid, bloody moron!" I spat, of course in reference to a madly egocentric Evan. He just had to wander off like that, all on his own. I tried to instil in him a sense of teamwork but my countless attempts were all in vain._

_I sighed and felt the pit of my stomach shake. I was hungry, tired, grumpy and relentlessly unwilling to leave the station until I knew Evan was safe._

_I fiddled around with the post it note in front of me, drawing a wretched, scrawny sick figure ploughing a rather nasty looking stake into the heart of another. The ink of my pen soaked deep into the page and my drawing took life. The man grew a thick mat of what would have been auburn brown hair, a heavy splinter of dirty wood stuck grotesquely out from within his chest, leaving a splodged ink stain of blood on his meagre stick figured shirt. If anything the little sketch was far too alike in comparison with what went through my head. If I just had that stake..._

_I brushed my fingers through my tired curls and felt the vulgar taste of fatigue run through the back of my throat. I shouldn't have rested my head on my desk considering if I fell asleep there'd be no-one to wake me up, too late..._

_I felt the tiniest nudge to my elbow and I watched hopelessly as my wine glass toppled slowly to the floor, clashing against it, spraying millions of the tiniest shards of crystal against the golden boards of the wooden floor. I felt my heart jolt and petrifying scene of the shattered glass faded before me. I woke to see a blurred white sheet of paper. My rather numb arm had collected in itself a pool of drool and the wispy image of a blurred man stood before me. He pat my head with his palm gently, trying to console my bemused expression._

_"Sorry to wake you Sarge..." he started but stopped as soon as he noticed that I dismissed him completely. I looked to the floor and noticed his heavily packed bag, the culprit that tore me away from the only real dream I had had for a while._

_I rubbed my eyes and felt Evan sit next to me, his hand nursed a rather nasty cut to his other wrist. He sat hopelessly alone and I wouldn't speak to him. I didn't know what to say._

_"What are you doin' here anyway Sarge?" he asked, God knows why. I brushed my fringe away from my forehead and propped up my exhausted head with my arm. I looked at him disgustingly, the sheer anger he made me feel was indescribable. A vague glitter of unprompted guilt fluttered through his eyes, it stopped me from the irascible outburst that I was notorious for._

_"What do you think?" was my frustrated reply to his rather matter of fact question. If he only knew the hours I spent mulling over the possibility of him being in danger. If only he felt the unwarranted, unmitigated anguish that tore through my body like a machete does thick scrub. The fact was, a man that I should have felt nothing for embodied my ideal sense of happiness. And that in all respects was a sin._

_My question puzzled Evan, my hostility didn't help. In a rather curious tone he wheeled his chair right next to me and I buried my head in my hands, too tired to be angry, too angry to be relieved._

_"You didn't have to wait up for me." came Evan's rather considerate reply, noticing my tired eyes close briefly in defeat._

_"I'm a big boy, can look after myself." Evan suggested, "Oh Sarge, why the long face? Thought I'd run off for good?" Evan laughed to himself seemingly quietly but the empty station magnified it tenfold. _

_I tried my best to contain the bulging anger within me, but there came a point where I couldn't stand his happy go lucky personality, it ate me up to the bitter core._

_"Don't you dare, Constable!" I spat, it's all I had to say. His eyes widened in shock._

_"Tess..." he tried to calm my ominously bitter tone._

_"I'm responsible for all your actions when you're that uniform! Did you even stop to consider us? Your team members?" I asked rhetorically, not really expecting an answer._

_"I didn't think..." Evan started but I could care less about his excuses._

_"I had Jo and Ben search the entire State Park for you! The Boss even considered calling in the dog squad! But you never think...never stop to think!" I yelled at him inconsiderately and the exhausted figure of a man, sat hopelessly submitting himself completely to my villenous wrath._

_"Yeah but I'm alright. You needn't have worried Sarge..." Evan said calmly, he watched as my suppressed worry did its best to consume me entirely. I rubbed my forehead hard with my palm and in the process stopped an onslaught of guilt stricken tears. He was right; I didn't have to worry about him._

_"But I did Evan, I worried about you..." I whispered softly amidst watered down anger. My hand quickly wiped away at any obvious tears. The dull silence between us grew like mould in between pavers. _

_"Sarge..." Evan sighed, he touched my arm in gentle recognition but I pulled my arm away._

_"You have to fill these out before you leave..." I muttered and pointed to a worn away manila folder sitting on the edge of my desk. _

_Ignoring Evan's pleas I left him behind in the dingy station, hoping he didn't take any of today's events to heart._

* * *

"You weren't just a Sergeant concerned for your colleague Tess..." Lucy said softly with a hint of stunted admonishment. She reminded me of something I made myself repress. 

"Wasn't I?" I asked Lucy, subconsciously begging her not to tread on this delicate subject. What and how I felt about Evan was completely personal, I intended to keep it that way.

"Tess, being concerned for Evan because you loved him, that isn't such a bad thing. We all worry about those we love because we're too scared of losing them. We build our lives upon them and can't cope without them." Lucy parted her dried out lips as her eyes floated to the floor. A gentle flicker of pain bruised her bleached white cheeks and in the same way I did, she took her thoughts and piled them on the shelf in the back of her mind.

"But Tess, we can't blame ourselves for the actions of others. If Evan got himself into the situation he was in on Tuesday, how could it have possibly been your fault?" Lucy asked seriously. The logic in her answer scolded me. I bit my lip and sighed heavily.

"I just felt there was something I could have done. I was his friend, I should have been there when he needed me but I wasn't. But Evan..." I said "Evan, he just spent so much of his time looking after me..."

_

* * *

Caught in a deluge of deathly cold rain, it seemed there would be no escape. It soaked through my thin jacket completely and plastered my skin with its icy texture. I crossed my arms tightly, to keep in the warmth that still remained behind in my densely cold body. My knuckles bulged white and froze like ice clasping desperately to my arms, my hair stuck like wet glue against my face, my feet numb and sore rocked me gently to and fro to keep me warm and dodge the stray drops of rain that the thick tree above didn't filter out._

_I tried running, it didn't work. In fact it was what got me in this mess in the first place. I had no umbrella, last that I can remember of it was the time I smashed it against the fence because it courteously flipped inside out on me, in the most horrendous of storms. I should have known better, looking up at the thin cloud of grey I should have known that it was going to rain, why didn't I think of it before? To be honest a certain individual invaded my mind, like a bad smell. He took my mind off the impending rain this morning and he had the same effect right now. _

_Somehow the rain didn't stop, it only grew heavier but I wasn't any colder. Just thinking of him induced the most glorious warmth inside me. I could have stood there all day. It seems I did, well not all day but until a certain person a few metres ahead of me caught my attention, it was then I felt a surge of cold and bitterly dreaded my current situation._

_I looked at the person carefully, walking towards me slowly, desperately shielding themselves from the onslaught of brutal rain and hurried wind with the brightest red umbrella. There was something about the way they walked, something strikingly familiar but it didn't bother me, instead I kind of wished that maybe they'd hurry up a little and be so nice as to offer me some shelter under their umbrella, just until it stopped raining._

_As they approached I averted my gaze only because it made me feel stupid asking. Maybe they'd pity me enough to suggest the offer themselves? Oh, wishful thinking. What made it even more awkward was the fact that the umbrella wielding person stood just to the side of me and stood still, not saying a word. I might have said something to them, remarked about how horrible the weather was or the fact that I was stranded in a rather hopeless situation but I was too embarrassed to, so I looked at the umbrella owner's shoes. From the corner of my eye I could deduct that it was a man, wearing very familiar shoes. Too familiar in fact, my eyes searched for the scuffing that would have indicated that I knew this man and in fact I did. I looked up into his face with a smile that hid my embarrassment._

_"Evan?" I asked and he stood a little bewildered, examining me from head to toe. He noticed my jumper stick tightly to my skin, my hair soaked in rain and my light jeans now a dark shade of navy blue, soaked, completely. He raised his eyebrows in sympathy but the sly smile across he face radiated hope. He'd finally found the opportunity to be my knight in shining armour, after all the hard work I had put into avoiding his advances, he'd finally found that tiny sliver of opportunity._

_"Stranded are we Sergeant?" he asked cheekily. I rolled my eyes and a smiled crept upon my face. He gazed at the motley rain soaked bags of shopping dumped at my feet. Following his eyes I looked down to them too and then to my shoes. I made my toes wiggle inside them, my socks doused in rain squeaked against the leather insoles of my Doc Martins. He understood that I was wet and hid me under his umbrella._

_Being too close for comfort with my favourite constable, it was only then that I noticed how many layers of clothes he had on. He was way too warm for my liking._

_"Here, hold this for a tick." he handed me the umbrella and I reluctantly retracted my hand from its tight grip on my arm to hold the umbrella handle that had already warmed to the heat of Evan's hand. He began to undress, the thick windproof fishing coat came off unveiling a even warmer jumper that he had on underneath. He held the coat in one hand and took the umbrella off me with the other. I stood a little dumbstruck._

_"Well, go on. Can't have you freeze to death!" he motioned for me to put his coat on but I waved my hands about in embarrassment._

_"No no, don't do that; then you'll be cold...it's okay I'll be fine!" I smiled while drops of rain flowed down my cheeks like lost tears._

_"I'm warmer than you think!" Evan took hold of my freezing wet hand and placed it against his cheek. Finally giving in to his gentle chivalry I put on his coat. His oversized fishing coat was twice as big on me; I could hardly find my hands at the end of its sleeves but still soaked in Evan's warmth I found the coat delightful._

_Thinking I was hardly warm enough Evan pulled of his beanie. Looking troublesomely at my shivering wet face he pulled up the sleeve on his jumper and wiped the rain off my face, much to my reluctance and he smiled when I pushed his hand away. Taking the little moment I had to close my eyes he shoved his warm beanie over my wet hair and pulled it down over my eyes, making sure I didn't see and for the time it took for me to readjust it to my head Evan had picked up my shopping in one hand and put his other arm around my shoulders. He held me close to him, just to make sure I was safe and sound from the vicious attack of wind._

_Under the shelter of his bright red umbrella Evan walked me home._

* * *

"I think I can understand Tess. You're guilt ridden because you think Evan loved you more than you could ever possibly have loved him right?" asked Lucy her hand stroking her chin in deep reflection. I hated the way she could just figure me out like that and most of all I hated the way that Lucy's questions always had to contain their answers within them. Her questions seemed to answer all my deepest anxieties. 

"Hmm..." I sighed gently, I didn't really have a response, and her question didn't really need one. It was true; Evan loved me more than I could ever possibly bring myself to love him and acknowledging that hurt, deeply.

"Tuesday Tess..." Lucy sought to bring my attention back to the event at hand. I know what Lucy said about other people's actions not being my fault but Tuesday was another matter. If there was one event in my life that I could have genuinely erased from my memory it would have had to have been Tuesday. To rid myself of the incessant feeling of dulled down sick, the petrified guilt; it was one of my most sought after dreams.

"Tuesday was completely my fault." I said in an antagonistic tone.

"Tess..." Lucy started. With a sigh of great defeat she rubbed her worn out palms together and looked into my hesitant eyes. Eyes that seem to hold the burden of life's pitiless wrath and misfortune.

"What am I meant to think Lucy, I sent him home-"

"You sent him home to collapse into a fit of uncontrollable convulsions, which were directly from the result of your negligence towards your colleague?" Lucy cut in to repeat the words that floated around in my head. But as she said them, in her incredulous tone I felt a sense of doubt.

"No, I…oh!" I rubbed my forehead with deep frustration; the tension building up in my forehead was relentless. It burned the muscles around my eyes making them swell and the deep seated pain in my chest didn't help. I sighed. Maybe Lucy was right, maybe Tuesday was just one of an unfortunate series of events that made up the colossal mistake that happened to be labelled my life. I buried my head in my hands as I conjured up the strained image of Evan lying hopelessly still on that hospital stretcher. No matter how romantically I looked at it, it still brought a feeling of harmful sick to the very earth of my stomach.

I breathed in the scent of Lucy's room as I opened my eyes; her patience face looked at me most sympathetically as she awaited my half finished answer. I shrugged.

"You had no idea what happened to Evan did you?" Lucy asked kindly, she leant forward and her pleasant smelling perfume filled my lungs as I breathed ever deeply. Like a delicate flower Lucy had an air of confident grace about her. She picked up my sense of unwillingness and gently touched my hand in soft comfort.

"I had no idea. I thought that maybe it was just a bug, something relatively harmless but when I saw how pale he looked on that stretcher when they were wheeling him away, my heart sank. Still, I didn't even think that it could have been..." I hadn't realised that I couldn't finish my sentence until I tried to speak again. The thick matt of tears that had built up like a sorry mess in the back of my throat made me choke and my words were lost to the wind. I tried again.

"I didn't think-" I just couldn't. Lucy saw the anguish.

"Didn't think it could have been arsenic?"

_

* * *

"Arsenic!" I asked a bewildered Dr. Mel, she too hid her hands deep in her pockets, fiddling with the pen that she had lost within one of them._

_"I wouldn't have thought of it myself but the garlic smell, these headaches you've mentioned, the stomach cramps, vomiting, convulsions..." she listed "I mean of coarse there is the possibility that it could be something completely different but at the rate we're _

_going we have little time to make drastic assumptions." Dr. Mel philosophised and the sorry glint of harsh red off her thick framed glasses highlighted her anxious worry._

_"How sure are you that he's been poisoned with arsenic?" I asked, in most cases I wouldn't challenge Dr. Mel's credibility but as long as my Constable lay in Casualty with a question mark hanging over his head I would surely persist._

_"About 99 Tess. We've seem to catch him at a very late stage. It looks like he's probably been poisoned over a long period of time." Dr. Mel sighed and I couldn't help but feel her eyes bore into me, accusingly bore into me as if everything were my fault._

_"But how..." Dr. Mel felt the tinge of curiosity in my voice._

_"Arsenic is still found commonly in most household pesticides and even in food but Tess the last time I've ever met a patient that has been unintentionally poisoned was an agricultural insecticide manufacture." contemplated Dr. Mel as she hurriedly flicked through Evan's files before her. With a sorry sigh she closed the file and handed it to the ward clerk in front of us. Leaning against the reception desk she waited to see my shock expression that emerged rather swiftly._

_"So, he's been deliberately poisoned?" I asked, a sudden jolt in my chest told me that my heart had just skipped a beat._

_"Most probably." said Dr. Mel and she sighed rather suddenly and her little worried pout stuck out from above her chin._

_Wringing my hands with the most intense worry I didn't know what do, I could feel the cavity in my chest compress and I struggled to breathe. I brushed my fingers through my hair in effort to calm myself down, my eyes closed softly as I took a deep breath._

_"Can I see him?" I asked Mel and she stared relentlessly at a patch of light just to the side of my eyes. Desperately avoiding my gaze as she knew how hard it would to be to tell me what she needed to._

_"Yes, of course but-" Mel held my arm before I turned to head into his room. Looking intently into my eyes I saw in hers the most earnest and fragile sense of loss._

_"We have just calmed him down and he's by no means stable, there is a chance that..." Dr. Mel looked to the floor and I pulled my hand away. Closing my eyes I tried to suppress any thought of Evan possibly dying, it was inconceivable, illogical. It simply wouldn't happen._

_I feigned a smile as my hand..._

* * *

"Sorry to interrupt..." there came a knock at the door and the slender dark haired lady that stuck her head just past the opening and looked excitedly at Lucy. Lucy looked down from her to me and her eyes indicated her most sincere of apologies. I accepted and silently forgave Lucy as she rose to speak to the slender lady. 

The pair spoke in muffled whispers just at the door and not looking at either of them directly I could just pick up with the woman was whispering.

"Sorry Lucy but Mr. Wilkinson is here. His wife has just..."

"Oh no..." Lucy covered her mouth with her hand and with an expression that flowed pain throughout her body she sighed softly and nodded quietly as the slender lady disappeared. Hesitantly moving back to her couch Lucy caught a glance at her clock before she sat down. Neatly placing herself on the couch she readjusted her crossed legs to what they looked like before and folded her hands gracefully.

"I'm sorry Tess but you don't mind if we cut today a little short?" Lucy asked, that glimmer of sincerity didn't escape her eyes and I was compelled to accept.

"Oh, of course not." I smiled gently and Lucy handed me a tissue to accompany me to the door. With a gentle sigh I glanced around at the office I had grown so accustomed to and hoped as I left that time would speed up so that I'd once again find myself in the audacious company of Lucy.


	4. Chapter 4

It's been a while, a long while and actually I thought I'd never really get around to this but since I have finished exams and I can temporarily forget the existance of the following si clauses, the thirteenth amendment to the constitution, snell's law, the remainder theorem, carboxylic acid, the date Matthew's gospel was written and Gatsby's "incorruptible dream". And instead delight you with the fourth chapter of my fic. So do enjoy, if that's actually possible:)

Oh of course thanks to my dedicated of reviewers: Ella, Paige, Paula, Sam and of course Emsta! Oh and just to reply to what Emma said: "You really like putting these two through shit, huh?" Oh yeah, I'm a diehard saddist:P

Chapter Four

Lucy didn't seem to be herself this morning. Fluttering around, pacing, and busily assorting heavy files into piles, clearing her desk of accumulated papers that seemed to have made their home on her antique desk. The usually placid and languid woman whom I thought was the epitome of tranquillity seemed to have the most disturbed air of turbulence about her.

She must have forgotten about me. I don't blame her, I would have too. I was the most depressing soul in the room. I sucked the life and happiness from the most abundant scenes of joy and replaced it with the most distraught ambience of sorrow. I felt helplessly trapped. Lucy's room now petrified and cold closed in on me, yet beyond her windows I could see the most wondrous of warmth, the heavenly alluring atmosphere that I dared not to touch, in case I sucked the life from that as well.

Lucy heaved a great sigh. The buttons on her delicate red cardigan floated about gently when she stopped quite abruptly in one spot. A great gasp of embarrassment leapt from lips once she'd noticed my frail, belittled figure hunched in the corner of the couch. She hurried to sit on the couch before me, quietly patting her knees and once she'd caught my glance, without a word she asked me to forgive her inattention and I did.

"I'm sorry about yesterday Tess. I just happened to have a problem with another patient of mine..." she smiled gracefully knowing that I would make the effort to understand. "...I shouldn't have just left you like that-"

"Oh no need to apologise, I understand." and I did understand. I had to realise that there are times when my misfortune was nothing compared to that of others.

Lucy smiled jubilantly after hearing my honest reply and with that she transformed into the woman that held the most gracious of empathy. A woman I sorely admired. She pat her hair delicately, hair that seemed to gleam in whatever sunlight I hadn't stolen already.

"So how are you today Tess?" she asked, her delicate smile adorned her face.

"Empty" I said frowning. It was the best way I could describe the shivering ache that collected itself in the cavity of my chest. Pain that wouldn't be alleviated with a paracetamol tablet or even a good cry, pain that wouldn't fade away gently with time, unbearable pain that sank into the depths of my aching heart.

"Oh..." Lucy gasped, the shining red in her rouged cheeks faded. She tilted her head and looked deeply into my jittery eyes.

"Evan filled that gaping hole within you and now..."

"And now just emptiness" I nodded and calmed the sudden invasion of sick tears. Lucy nodded too and taking her eyes of me she played with the imaginary bits of lint on her sleek, dark grey pants. I looked at her; a woman that always evinced the most regal character now looked starkly pale. She distracted herself with the lint on her pant leg and in the process bore something of her rather dainty frailness. For a short moment everything in the room dissolved away and to dear Lucy she was the only one that still remained. A deep reverie entranced her so completely that it was only when her sleek grey pant leg produced no more lint that she finally awoke.

"You seem to be such an independent individual Tess but why do you think you depended so greatly on Evan?" asked Lucy completely out of the blue. It made me think. Was I _really_ dependant on Evan? I shook my head. I would never let myself become vulnerable enough to need to depend on someone. It was something Evan reminded me about such in a condescending way.

"Dependant?" I asked, her question bothered me.

"Emotionally dependant if you like. Wasn't there a bit of you that pined for his company?" As soon as I heard Lucy's explanation I averted my gaze. The remarkable way in which she read my most suppressed of thoughts was astounding. I took the moment to admire the thickly pushed in buttons beside me, they sank into the couch like deeply hidden belly buttons. I brushed a little tuft of hair over my ear and tried most adamantly to avoid Lucy's probing question.

"Tess?" she asked seeing the stark red blaze across my cheeks and my tear imbrued eyelashes. What would I say? I ran my hand down the thin denim of my jeans pant leg making my hand tingle. My eyes floated up to the ceiling and spotted the delicately carved cornices that floated along like decorative script written more than half a century ago, perhaps by well trained calligrapher.

"He was there to help you pick up the pieces when Josh left..." Lucy stated delicately, she wouldn't coerce me in an obvious manner. Her invincible eyes watched me hopefully. I sighed; there was nothing Lucy wouldn't push past me. In her sickeningly subtle way she managed to put me in the most uncomfortable of situations and force out from within me the most recalcitrant of answers.

"I suppose I needed him..."

_

* * *

As bitterly numb as the tired bones of arthritis suffer my body lay aching. At the slightest touch my skin throbbed irrefutably, penetrating most harshly into the depths of the sheets I lay against._

_No amount of any powerful analgetic drug would suffice; no tender words could console; nor would even an affectionate kiss relieve the incogitable triumph of my pain's sweet success._

_With that I lay mute, aware completely that a word carelessly muttered would rob me of precious life-giving energy. Aware of nothing but the hushed sounds of lovingly sweet melodies composed by the flitty birds outside, I rested almost peacefully, the soothing feel of the evening sun against my ravaged forehead my only narcotic._

_If it weren't for the pounding ache in my chest or the silently cold sheets I might have fallen asleep._

_My irritable consciousness alerted me to the tiniest almost incomprehensible sounds that patterned the air softly. Every delicate touch to the twisted sheets around my body I felt acutely and every inodorous smell burnt the back of my throat with its acrid fragrance. It was how I knew he'd entered the room._

_Being the clement, beautiful man he was he made every effort to console my pain. A woollen blanket was draped delicately over my aching body so gently that I only felt malaise. A wonderfully warm and graciously soft hand stroked the burning skin on my forehead, though the pain of his touch was unbearable, his soothing gesture was a settling remedy._

_"Ev..." I mumbled incoherently, my jaw swollen and my throat scolding hot. _

_"Shh..." I heard his cautious reply. His placid, warm breath poured over my face and I felt his radiating comfort. There was something so delicately stunning about this man, something so profoundly attracting that made his company all the more desirable. _

_His tender fingers smoothed over my blazing hair, calming the blustery, savage curls that tangled in a mess over my aching scalp. Too engrossed in his altruistic sympathy I could barely open my distressed eyes and when I did the gentle touch of his warm hand to my forehead was enough to make them close again. I could feel the sincerity of his smile, a pleasant smile that seemed to have the most honest quality about it, a smile that seemed to promise you the world and nothing less._

_"How are you feelin'?" A tide of his sweet breath flowed against my cheek and I couldn't help but strain a smile. He caressed my face affectionately, warming his palm to the heat of my cheek or softly stroking my supple lips with his thumb, a soft hint of his desire to kiss me. I did my best to restrain the pain of his otherwise delicate affection but even the softest kiss to my cheek made me groan in pain._

_"Sorry..." he whispered and pleaded for forgiveness but still with mere good intentions he glided his fingertips against my forehead. I blotted out the pain; in fact it was no longer an issue. My body stiff and lifeless as a bar of cold steel then turned against me completely as a deluge of bitter cold surged through me making my skin shrivel with fright and my aching muscles shiver in pain._

_Evan was one to notice the tiniest of distinctions and making a villenous mistake he slid himself next to me, crushing the sheets I lay on. I winced and my eyes screwed themselves tightly as a trickle of tremendous pain crawled in short bursts up the length of my spine. If it weren't for his warm body that I quickly pressed against, I wouldn't have forgiven him at all._

_"Hey, you're freezing..." he quickly wrapt his arms around me. He lifted my head gently so that I lay on his shoulder. Embalmed in the most subtle of warmth I let myself relax, the soft and delightful smell of Evan tickled my nose and drew me even further into the depths of sleep._

_I felt a soft kiss to my lips, the only part of me that wasn't ravaged in pain. I dared not open my eyes in case he looked too fondly at me. His enchanting blue crystal eyes would always shine gently against the evening sun, enticing any poor victim to them. They were eyes that even with the slightest glance could enrapture the darkest of souls and with that unwittingly steal their hearts completely._

_Another soft kiss and I tried to get away but he held me close and the pain in my chest persisted so I had to submit myself to his ravenous charm. His forehead pressed savagely against mine, he whispered._

_"Next time you decide you'd like to get caught down a mine shaft make sure you tell me beforehand, might be there to rescue you before you get hypothermia, hey?" his hand soothed the muscles in my neck and somehow made the pain erode away._

_"Mmm..." was the only response I gave, the heat in my otherwise aching muscles melted away at his fingertips and for what seemed a flicker of a moment I was glad he was there._

_"Better?" He knew that within the colossal wall that barred my precious heart a dreaded weakness lurked, a weakness that he knew better than to toy with._

_I felt him smile again._

_"What were you doing in that mine to begin with eh?" he caught the troubled look in my glance and my lips barely parted to speak. The terrible, teasing heat of his breath fluttered against my neck like the soft pat of butterfly wings in the spring. I could barely move. I was absorbed in an exotic trance, one from which I could find no escape._

_"Just walking maybe, to get your mind off things?" Theoretically it wouldn't matter why I was there; the only important note to make was that it seemed to be a constant lack of judgement that got me into strife. It was an unequivocal sign that Evan seemed to interpret as the need for protection and companionship. Maybe he was right? Maybe the part of me that was starved of vulnerability finally decided to crave for the reassurance that Evan gave?_

_Evan's question remained unanswered; the cause of my persistent pain would remain a mystery. It didn't seem to bother him in the slightest._

_The final rippling of his breath through my hair whispered something gentle._

_"Tess, don't ever forget, you'll never be alone. I'll always be here." _

_I lacked the energy to speak although it didn't matter. Evan got what he came for. With a meagre glance into his intrepid eyes I told him that I'd succumb to his incessant desire to love me, and for that I needed no words._

* * *

Lucy didn't seem to mind that I constantly rubbed my forehead with a sort of petrified anguish. I suppose it was part of her considerate nature more so than anything else. I didn't need to tell her that I felt extremely liable to self implode. The notion of having to depend on someone never struck me before and I sorely hated admitting it. 

Lucy inevitably felt my discomfort and did her best to make sure that we touched on it, just to make me feel that bit worse.

"You never thought of the need to rely on someone did you Tess?" asked Lucy the light of the afternoon sun hastily glittered down on her shoulders. I pressed my hand up against my forehead just to check its warmth, it was lukewarm, and I couldn't feign sick. My eyes darted across the room as I searched for a logical answer; nothing purposeful came to mind only vague pictures of vaguely solid statue like objects.

"Ah, there's only really ever been me." I answered more reluctantly than I thought, the tips of my fingers drummed nervously along the sofa.

"Only ever been you?" asked Lucy tilting her head in honest curiosity. I'd forgotten that she knew relatively nothing about me despite the fact that she obviously had some ridiculous in depth knowledge of my mind. I was too used to Evan's company. With Evan, explanation defeated its purpose.

"Mum was usually otherwise occupied, I got the lovely task of raising my two brothers and sisters on my own." there came an unexpected pride in that statement as if all my self confidence based itself on the unprecedented knowledge that I survived life in the harshest of circumstances.

"There wasn't anyone to rely on." I finished making sure that I told myself it wasn't my fault, that I was independent for a damn good reason and that I didn't have to change, for anybody.

Lucy eyes lit up softly as she was magically enlightened. A soft question brushed her lips.

"But you were married; didn't you have to rely on Josh, even a little?"

The subject of Josh was one I tried desperately to suppress. I was a woman who glorified triumph and for failure felt the most delirious scorn. My marriage to Josh was the epitome of failure, the unsuccessful dream.

"I only married Josh to keep my mind off the problem at hand." my hands dug invisible trenches in my thighs, rubbing deep into denim.

"Problem?" Lucy asked a little confused. It was amazing to see her perturbed. Of all people, I thought that Lucy would be the one to understand my predicament. I sighed and looked up as I spoke; there was always this ignominious discomfort when I had to reveal anything about me.

"Evan" The ceiling glared vigilantly as I confessed. Lucy didn't bother to get my attention; she knew this conversation was directed specifically to anyone but her.

"Ahh..." The green in Lucy's eyes glinted with a strange translucence as if they'd just absorbed something profound. She understood my 'problem'. Evan was my quintessential romance and in being that he was only ever my greatest fear.

My eyes darted to avoid Lucy's compelling expression, instead I amused myself with the fluttering pages on Lucy's desk, the little breeze from the crack in the open window played with the sheafs of paper making them flap frighteningly against the book they lay under.

"It's hard enough to admit that something you desired was completely out of reach, fanatically forbidden. And what's worse you gave in completely, grasped for what was unattainable. You told yourself you shouldn't, you knew that you'd get hurt but something lured you into it. For that fleeting moment in time reason didn't sound logical. What was it Tess, what gave you the courage to surrender to Evan?" Lucy pressed the tips of her fingers into the soft leather of the couch and with a cowardly glimpse I managed to catch the look in her eyes.

"I suppose for once my heart fought the brutal battle against my head, and it won." I swallowed hard. There was something about what I just said that seemed vaguely distasteful.

"And _you_ lost." Lucy remarked. Her eyes darted now across the room to peer above my head, just to avoid my gaze for a moment.

And she was right, I did lose. I'd finally given in to the one thing I feared most, to then have it blow up in my face. I'd seemed to have forgotten that all the world's happiness and success is divided unproportionally amongst us at birth.

It was only once that morning that I had lost track of time, instead of pouring out my most barred up of feelings I was happy enough to just sit and watch the light pour across Lucy's face. It made beautiful patterns across her deceptively white porcelain skin and lit her dull red lips, a strong vermillion. Her green eyes glittered like the effervescent glow of warm chartreuse, green one minute, dangerously yellow the next. They made a wonderful amusement park of her sombre face, flashing like the lights behind tinsel. What mistake did I make to only notice her brilliance, when behind dazzling chartreuse lay a pronounced sadness, one I'd never seen before. But she disposed of it as soon as I noticed. With the stiff brush of amber hair behind her ear, her eyes turned a fervent jade.

"Tess, what you said this morning about feeling empty-" she asked the small smile curled against her cheeks lovingly, patiently. I confirmed her question with a slight nod and brought my hand up to my chest. It was still there, that feeling of rotted death, emptiness.

"Empty. Is that the way you felt when you sat by his bedside Tess?" Lucy asked. The soothing jade glittered an unimaginable wistful colour, almost as if she knew what happened; as if that horribly morbid Tuesday played like the vivid memory of last night's movie. I seemed to like to think that maybe she was mystical. She certainly bore a beautifully esoteric character. Her delicate, polite demeanour was something cherished, the dignified soft way she spoke was majestic.

With careful thought I tried to picture in my mind the chaotic feelings that ran through my vexatious body. It was almost indescribable.

"I couldn't breathe..."

_

* * *

All I could think about when I touched the door handle was how horribly ugly the floor looked. The deep black scratches cut angrily into thick beige lino, an almost ominous sign to show that hurt ran deep cuts into people's hearts. Here, in this place, death was more expectant then the rise of the glowing sun in the morning._

_I clenched my fists tightly and pulled the door handle down fiercely, almost hoping that I'd pull down too hard and with some luck it'd cut and I wouldn't have to see his face. I wouldn't have to see the lively red drain from his supple lips, the pretty traces of fantastic blue fade to an almost dislikeable grey and that radiant smile (that I carelessly fell in love with), disappear softly off his face like the shadow of the moon behind crisp clouds. But the door opened, just like I hoped it wouldn't._

_He lay across sterile white sheets, just asleep. The most hauntingly peaceful expression plastered ceaselessly across a vaguely life filled face._

_The incessant throb of the heart monitor's sick beep resounded through the room, hardly absorbed by the thickish blue walls or the cold white ceiling, a casual reminder of the fragility of life, its lack of dominance and strength. _

_I breathed in slowly to calm the screeching sick nestled deep in the pit of my chest but I wouldn't move. I couldn't step closer. The glistening flood of innocent light glowed gently across his sheets; it made the odd intravenous cord glint discommodiously and filled me with an air of sudden sick, perverted guilt._

_It was only when the subtle bisque light faded hopelessly across his face that I ever caught my breath. The tiny sway of his hand across white sheets and a soft murmur broke the inevitable silence._

_"Tess..." came his soft pleading call, it was so unutterably incomprehensible that it was only when he courageously stretched out his hand toward me that I knew what he meant._

_My legs numbed and wouldn't move. Eyes still draw from his disastrous situation. Light burned gently into my eyes, blinding my vision, my responsibility to care. To hear him breathe though felt relieving, only marred but the odd villainous cough._

_"Tess" he begged, I could feign non existence no longer._

_"Ahh there, shh..." I whispered softly, my tepid breath soothed his glowing pain. I smoothed over his hair gently with my palm, making sure it didn't hurt._

_"Please-" he choked on his words as his breathlessness became apparent. I found myself a chair from somewhere and carefully placed myself in it, the cold steel drained away my warmth._

_He struggled for words and it was only when I clasped his hand gently that he seemed to begin to relax; I on the other hand felt my heart beat in my ears._

_For once in my life, silence bore more significance than the liveliness of noise. I felt more comfortable to sit and watch silently, Evan's hopeless quest for recovery, every now and then murmuring soft condolences or entwining my fingers in his._

_Amidst perpetual pain and the sudden loss of desire Evan seemed to forget my presence._

_"Tessy?" he asked, he hadn't once opened his eyes. His tired hand searched for mine lest I left him there, alone. My hands clutched my stomach instead; for fear that a deluge of welling sick was imminent. But to watch him cringe and barely draw breath could bruise the most leaden heart. I thought that maybe it wouldn't hurt to tell him how important he was, to me that is. To finally tell him how much I loved him, well, how much I tried to love him. But as soon as I brushed my hand over his forehead, smothered his cheek with warm kisses I could no longer find the courage._

_"Mt. Thomas 800 to 208..." my portable blurred from next to me and instinctively I would have responded immediately but just one look at Evan, his hands agonisingly gripping the crisp white sheets I fumbled for the portable's switch and silently turned it off._

_"It might have been important..." came a struggled murmur amidst painful gasps._

_"Nothing is more important than you-" I said eagerly and only added "right now" after I realised what I had said._

_"I'm going to die, aren't I?" Evan questioned, a glint of absolute fear rang in his voice. My stomach lurched but I swallowed away the pain. I found his hand twisted viciously amongst the sheets and dislodged it gently, instead holding it in mine, gently patting it with the most absorbed, capricious fear._

_"That's ridiculous." I whispered, just loud enough to make myself feel better as well. Evan's hand reddened beneath mine and his fingers tried to escape from my entangled grip. For a man I'd never cease to repel I could never let him slip away._

_He struggled against the constant lack of air or maybe just the inevitable tightness in his chest. Every second that passed he grew a shade lighter and finally the red drained from his lips, leaving him with a horribly weak face, one devoid of all happiness._

_"Tess-" he gulped and I stood up, hearing the gruff sound in his voice, the one that told me he couldn't breathe. My stomach fell heavy against my abdomen and I covered my mouth with my hand, ready to be sick. I released Evan's hand and turned quickly to head for the door, trying to forget for a split second that maybe when I returned he wouldn't be there anymore, but a sicking gruff sound glued me to the lino._

_"Tess...please-" he grasped for all the air he could "-don't go, I-I'm scared, pleas-" his plea was cut short with a violent cough that sprayed blood on the sheets before him. I gasped suddenly and retreated back to his side, my hands splayed across the bedside table in search of a tissue, or something of the sort. For the moment I closed my eyes I tried to calm the fearful anguish in my cheeks. I wouldn't let myself cry. I had to be brave._

_"Tessy-" Evan coughed again, this time his hands collected the deluge of vicious blood. I cringed and when his hands fell limp against the sheets. I took the scrunched up tissue that I'd found and soaked the blood away._

_"Maybe we should call a nurse or something..." I muttered to myself, helplessly searching amidst red pools and white patches for his buzzer. It was all in vain, the funny floaty feeling in my chest didn't help either. Before I knew it tears welled up just under my eyeballs, I did my best to hold them back._

_"No, I need to tell you something." he grasped my hand tightly and he opened his eyes. The sun tore savagely into them but he kept them open. "I need to tell- tell you, something" he gasped heavily "-before I..." I knew what would come next and I didn't want to hear it._

_"Oh no, no, Evan. You'll be okay, see, just fine-" he closed his eyes as he caught his breath and a soft moment of repose._

_"Tes..." he whispered, his blistered lips barely moved but I continued, ignoring him completely._

_"Just fine." I kissed his sweat drenched forehead lightly, and pat his warm cheeks with the back of my hand. Evan finally caught his breath but exhausted he searched for a comfortable corner in his pillow and softly shut his tired eyes. I took advantage of his brief moment of silence to let my anxious thoughts rush through my head. If any moment was ever vivid, this would have had to have been the one. If any moment in my pathetic life, I ever felt a sense of sincere loss, this was it. 'Round in my head confused red pictures formed and I started to imagine life without Evan. Though it was completely impossible. He was just always there. I think I got too used to just having him that ever picturing a moment without him was surreal. To think that he'd never hold me again when I cried, or ever make me smile. Or just love me. Who else could ever possibly love me the way he did?_

_I kissed his hand, it was smeared with dry blood but I didn't care. I kissed him because I cherished him. I kissed away any enigmatic feeling that lodged itself in my heart so I'd numb myself to any impending loss._

_"You can't kiss it better now..." Evan murmured amongst perilous gasps of air. That soft struggled murmur brought a smile to my fearless face. How many times had I wished to just be this imperishable figure in his life, to hold him when he hurt, just like he did me. But it never worked, I wouldn't let it. Evan knew how much I tried though, tried to love him._

_The light poured over his face again, it delved into every corner of his hollow cheeks and soaked into his lethargic skin. There wasn't much long to go and his grip on my hand slowly weakened._

_Soft pools of perspiration bubbled out over his face and teemed slow streams along his cheeks, melting away every little last tinge of pretty pink from his beautiful face._

_Mixed with fear came his sad deluge of tears, to wash away the sweat. I tried my best to wipe them away. For I hadn't ever seen Evan cry and I don't think he liked it much either._

_Blood bubbled out over his lips and he gave off a sort of stifled cry._

_"Tessy," he murmured softly. "I love you." his hands smeared blood across his pale cheeks. And I felt strangely weak. The sick in my stomach gave in and poured out as a thick flood of tears. I hid my face in the hand that wasn't clutching on to Evan. I couldn't forget how brilliant it felt to be told that you're loved. Evan always found the moment to whisper it into my ear when I least expected it; it may have been a wicked plot to get himself out of trouble sometimes but just to see the look in his face when he did, the way his eyes traced around my face admiringly as if I was some kind of precious, exclusive spectacle like the most delicate porcelain doll, that could only be treated with the most engulfing esteem. And his gentle smile, oh it only ever overwhelmed my poor heart._

_"Oh Evan..." I whispered softly and I squeezed into the tiny nook still left on his bed. I lay myself down, just close enough and pressed my face against his. Still warm, so pleasantly warm. He never seemed to lose that affable warmth about him. Sometimes, secretly, I wished that when he hugged me I'd melt into his arms and never have to leave. I'd just bask in his gorgeous warmth, forever. Ever happy, perpetually in love._

_I brushed my fingers through his wet hair while a sort of hurt collected itself in the bottom of my chest._

_"You're not trying hard enough! You can't leave me!" my voice wailed softly in his ear and I cried. Clinging onto his frail body. I cried so hard that tears bruised my cheeks and my chest roared with pain. For the thought of losing Evan was as unobvious as the thought of someday never having the oxygen to breathe. I needed him. More so than I needed oxygen._

_"I can't..." Evan gulped hard, his nose pressed softly into my cheek. "-breathe." He struggled for what seemed like his last, unattainable breath and instead beat his fists against the sheets. Violently, crushing them under his relentless grip, as if the tighter he gripped; the more fibre that blazed itself into his flesh, the more chance he had at staying alive._

_"No Evan, don't you dare!" the warning in my voice wasn't heard._

_Evan wouldn't calm. A sudden rise in temperature made him stir and beads of sweat cascaded down his forehead in aimless streams. No amount of soothing words or gentle caress could stop him, he tossed frighteningly against the sheets and I was carelessly shoved to the ground. He shook, uncontrollably. Grey eyes, rolled back completely, his mouth a gaping hole, oozing blood and pools of ridiculous saliva. He made an awful choking noise and right before my eyes morphed into some horrifying creature, one that couldn't feel the pain of my restraining arms against his chest or the delirious effort I made to stop his arm from accidentally yanking itself free of an IV cord. The fleeting surge of horrified beeping blurred from a heart monitor near him. I searched hard for his little white buzzer but a nurse from outside already flung herself through the door with incredible speed. I was whisked outside with great effort and only left to peer through a tiny glass window. Another seemingly worthless object that stood in between him and I._

_If I could have scratched away the glass I would have. I clung onto the little hope I had left that maybe, just maybe because I was his Sergeant they let me witness his final horrific moments of pain but a curtain drew shut over the window and I plunged into the chair below it, burying my face deep into the hollows of my palms. Deep into the comforting darkness they gave._

_The beeping wouldn't cease, I heard it through the door and it engraved itself into my mind. I could feel my legs lose blood and my chest tighten so tight that it felt pointless to breathe. Black spots rushed across my eyes so I closed them again and tried to stop my legs from shaking. I'd never been like this before. Nothing made sense. My tired feet grew heavy and numb; my stomach teemed with a thick pool of sick. I gently rocked myself in the plastic chair, just to settle myself a little. My head then scoured for an answer. It came upon a prayer._

_"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild..." I whispered to myself, if only I could remember the rest of the words. They never came and for that particular moment I don't think they would have. All that played through my head was the hopeless look in Evan's eyes, he knew that he was going to die and he wasn't willing to ever convince me of it. He'd bare the full brunt of my ever determined demeanour, because I'd never fail that way he couldn't either. But he did._

_Silence dawned upon the corridor of the hospital ward, so meekly that it almost felt unreal. The only noise I could hear was the sound of my hopeless gasps for breath, that and struggled my heartbeat. The beeping ceased. I knew what that meant but I wouldn't believe it, not my Evan, my beautiful Evan._

_But the nurse stood at the door, peering relentlessly into the sharp deep, ominous, black scratches. Not willing to take one look in my direction because the bruised blue under my eyes would have torn her to pieces. Her heavenly white uniform was so abhorrently stained with his blood. No effort on her part was taken to wash it away. She just stood there, her lowly figure huddled against the door she tried to close, mustering up the courage to look at me._

_When she did, she only confirmed my greatest fear with a solemn shake of her head, and then her eyes tore again to the floor. As if she gained some pleasant reassurance that this was all this place catered for, death._

_I wouldn't stand for that though, what kind of nurse did she think she bloody well was? To stand there, absolutely helpless, not even look at me once or try and understand what went through my head?_

_I tried to get up but my jelly legs tore me straight back down into the seat and my head into my hands. For what it was worth I cried until my eyes felt blue again. _

_The door creaked and the next time I looked, the nurse had disappeared instead Mel sat rather strangely by my side, an awkward look on her face, a mixture between failure and guilt, that and a steady apprehension._

_"Tess?" she asked softly, tilting her head to one side and peering delicately over her red framed glasses. I wiped at sticky tears._

_"Tess, I'm sorry." she tried her best to look me straight in the eyes but missed, brazenly. _

_A tiny speck of guiltless contempt grew deep within my heart. So deeply that it gave me the sudden urge to get up, see what it was that this pitiful doctor had so effortlessly failed to do._

_I picked myself up and headed to the door. The cold navy door that was so harshly closed on me and barred me so brilliantly from impending hurt and anguish. I could have kicked it down._

_"Tess, I wouldn't..." came a deft remark from the heartless Mel. "He doesn't look that great-" I rolled my eyes and palmed the door with frustration. _

_"I wouldn't want you to think that we didn't try Tess, we did. It's just that there was so much pressure on his heart from those last convulsions that he just gave in...We did our best-"_

_"No!" I screamed at her, the first of some anger stricken tears streaked down my cheeks, just smudging whatever blue was still left. "You didn't bloody try! He's dead! He's-" I did my best to kick the door but all I could managed was a hopeless cry and I sank to my knees, back firmly stuck against the door. And I felt sorry for myself again, like I did when Jack left, so that it wouldn't hurt so badly. I cried because it was the only thing that stopped me from yelling or tearing my hair out or so selflessly telling myself that it was simply 'okay', that life somehow would work without him._

* * *

Lucy picked at the box of tissues so mournfully that being in the room you might have thought that Evan was hers. I didn't shed a tear. Years of apathy thought me that grief was simply selfish pining. Instead Lucy wiped away her tears and glumly whispered a soft apology. 

"Oh Tess, I'm so very sorry. I don't mean to get so emotional..." I think Lucy meant that it was her job not to get emotional but somehow as splendid as Lucy was she just let her feelings get the better of her. It's a sort of weakness we all have and it's one I hate. While Lucy dabbed softly at watery tears I reabsorbed all the colour back into the walls. They'd softly faded from existence for a moment and it scared me that I'd lost my grip on reality.

"But Tess, you're not sad?" Lucy's soft eyes, so delicately green delved into mine like high beamed lights. She'd noticed my lack of affection over Evan's death, in fact it scared her.

"No, I think I've cried myself out." I smiled pleasantly and Lucy smiled back seeming to except my disconnection from any sort of grief.

The thought of a very distant memory lurked in the back of my mind and I turned my head to the window, absorbing the last little dance of the frightened brown bird.

I think it's rather silly to cry, that's not to say that I don't, I simply don't think I like the feeling. It's a horrible feeling of profound failure and you shed tears to compensate for it. Just to show everyone that's your a complete loser because in all honest truth something hurt you so deeply that you lost all sense of control and now tears gush down your pitiless cheeks and you feel an awful sense of loss.

"...a cup of tea perhaps?" Lucy finished her question and I only noticed that I spent the last 5 minutes of our one hour meeting absorbed completely in thought. I shrugged and Lucy drummed her fingers against her lips. Did she mind my absentmindedness?

"Oh Tess," I think she might have recognised my absent withdrawal from the present reality and my reluctance to return.

"Anything you want to say before you leave?" a deeply concerned looked blazed through Lucy's eyes but with a hesitant smile I firmly shook my head and got up graciously to leave.

But of course Lucy knew that something was the matter. She knew that no matter how hard I tried to hide under my thick, imperfect skin, inside I lay crushed. For nothing tore me apart so brutally than the death of my most beloved friend, my beloved Evan.

Lucy touched my arm as I left in silence.

"We'll talk more tomorrow Tess, okay? Make yourself a nice cupper when you get home and read a good book. It'll do you good." her worn smile shone gently against her face and always made her appear so genuinely loving.

I couldn't feel the heat of the sun against my skin nor see the blue of the sky. Ever since Tuesday everything seemed to lose its happy vitality. Maybe tomorrow would bring the back sweet smell of hope?

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

I'm so very sorry that it's been such a long time between chapters. Life has just been extremely hectic and I still haven't really caught my breath yet! There came the comment that the last chapter was lachrymose (i.e.causing or tending to cause tears) and realistic? I'll take that as a huge compliment! You might just find this one a little depressing too!

Once again I apologise for the plot being _so_ slow, it's all very intergral to the storyline but so monotonous that's it's ridiculous! If it's getting to anyone, please let me know! I do promise we'll get somewhere next chapter. I apologise in advance for any spelling mistakes oh and wierd slurring of ideas; I haven't been well lately, that might explain it. Queries, qualms? Most welcome to e-mail me! Oh and before I go, just love to thank my awesome, zealous reviewers (you know who you are!); you make writing this fic just that little bit more achievable!

**Disclaimer: **"Nineteen Eighty-Four" isn't mine (wish it was), it actually belongs to the notoriously known George Orwell (Eric Blair?). Any ideas affiliated with him and his novel aren't mine either (see, Marta I'm not _really_ creative!).

Enjoy;

Chapter Five

Today's little meeting was conducted outside. Lucy noticed how keenly I looked out through that window of hers, out into the exclusive little haven she possessed. To get away from the elusive distraction was her initial plan; her ulterior desire was more subtle. Today, disquietude ate away furrows in my forehead and bleached the peach in my cheeks. "Sunlight" said Lucy was "one of the most effective remedies for a mangled soul". And she knew today, conviviality would be a pipe dream, just as it always was when words were exchanged in her presence.

We both sat, blaring morning sunshine soaking into our skins; adopting a rather awkward position on an old wooden bench whose white painted skin was flaking away in huge thin pieces. We sat under the window, in hope that any dream of escape would be quashed; any wondering fascination would be eliminated.

There were only willows to admire. The brown bird had disappeared and with him went half the cheerful bright coloured birds that usually hopped on the flimsy branches of the willow trees, delighting the occasional visitor with their whimsical song.

It's such a pity, I only just found myself comfortable with that huge black couch. The thought of not being able to bury myself within its mellow skin was abhorrent and onerous.

Outside felt too uncomfortable. It was the distinct reality that I kept myself hidden from, for fear that somehow I'd managed to destroy it, just like I destroyed Evan.

Lucy lost her professional persona on the bench having to sit right next to me. We both didn't speak, there was a certain unfamiliarity between us that grew whenever Lucy looked at me, I knew what she wanted to talk about but my reluctance to do so was persistent.

"I quite like sitting out here for today, I've been meaning to catch a bit of sun. I've been too couped up in that office of mine..." Lucy didn't look at me when she spoke; instead the silky black cat sitting on the stark palm green fence caught her attention, her voice trailed off in the breeze.

"What its name?" I asked, meaning the cat. It hobbled across the fence with an air of clumsiness, its paws slipping roughly off the wooden pails.

"Sorry?" Lucy asked, her eyes flicked back to me once the cat had managed to disappear over one side of the fence. I glanced to the fence from whence the cat had appeared only moments ago.

"Oh the cat..." Lucy shrugged; her olive green cardigan glittered on her fragile shoulders. "It just reminded me of something I'd forgotten long ago. Funny how the smallest things can remind you of the tiniest but most significant memories, associative memory they call it." Lucy smiled and her face lit her eyes that wonderful fervent green.

The cat on the fence bothered me; it gave Lucy a reason to bring up Tuesday.

"Do you ever experience that Tess?" Lucy asked, she'd folded her hands into her lap carefully and with a diligent nod she followed my eyes as they swept to the right for an answer.

"Red pegs make me think of Mondays" I smiled as a flash of a severed red peg flickered across the back of my mind.

"Mondays?" Lucy asked a little disappointed. Her eyes bore brazenly into mine, that hint of earnest within them happened to be a little overbearing. But red pegs and Mondays were safe to talk about, unlike Tuesday and white hospital ceilings.

"We did washing on Mondays. We only ever had red pegs." I concluded, the pointless remark grew with absurdity but Lucy seemed to find something rather amusing about it, there was an emergence of gleeful lines about the corner of her eyes but instead of the usual insightful comment Lucy lost herself in the memory of a distant Monday, one that she probably wouldn't share.

The reverie only lasted a second and I took the valuable time to reshuffle myself on the seat and pull back my tired hair with my aching fingers, exposing whatever was left of the vigorous red in my face.

"You didn't sleep too well last night I gather?" Lucy startled me as I rubbed my forehead with my bleached rough palms, they scratched my cheeks harshly. It was too evident to need to explain the lack of sleep I had been getting. Every night was the same dreary routine, I'd wake half covered in sticky sweat from a monotonous, elusive nightmare that haunted me deeply in sleep. Clutching my pillow I'd try in vain to simulate the same succouring warmth of Evan's embrace. It wouldn't work, the pillow slip didn't feel as pleasing as feel of the delicate skin on Evan's neck, nor did it smell half as good. Sleep remained futile until the early hours of the morning when exhaustion became suffocating and I would collapse unconsciously into half satisfying sleep, only to wake again hours later, the sound of my blatant alarm clock ringing deeply in my ears.

I sighed quite hopelessly and urged myself to at least produce a sort of confident smile but that felt too exhausting so I sat numb again. Lucy picked up my dejected thoughts just as she always did and her delicate flair made her eyes glisten empathetically, her strong vermillion lips carved themselves into a soft half smile.

"How are you feeling this morning then Tess? Yesterday you felt empty but today...?" I skimmed the tips of my fingers across my forehead, back over my ear and buried them deep into my matt hair. I forget the day my hair lost its shine.

"Today, tired, just-"

Lucy let a gasp of warm breath escape from pursed lips, and the pressure of the once bulged cheeks made them bruise crimson.

Unfortunately 'tired' wasn't the word she was searching for, everybody in her profession knew that tired only ever became a sly overstatement for an emotion that was too delicate to express. What I did feel that morning happened to be inexpressible, it most certainly didn't have a _word_ to describe it.

Lucy pulled back numerous locks of her hair from just in front of her eyes, sighed helplessly and internally built up her fractured confidence.

"Associative memory Tess, they say is the best possible way of retrieving information, when one piece of information is linked to another piece of related information, like a visual cue..." Lucy swallowed delicately, letting the wind pick up the end of her sentence again, she turned to the once admired fence and looked for the sleek furred cat.

"That cat, Tess, reminded me of someone I used to know. He had a black cat like that named Jessie and it hobbled along the fence, just like that one did. It's strange because whenever I see a black cat, I think of Jessie. Just in the same way you went home last night and stared up to the white ceiling from your bed and bought yourself back to Tuesday and that horrific afternoon. Surely you can't tell me you don't feel anything else apart from a vague sense of fatigue."

Breathing felt awkward for the next five minutes, I didn't know how she knew about my ceiling being white or the sick little ritual I played out every evening before bed. I wouldn't be lying if I said it astounded me. There became an inexhaustible list of things I wanted to keep secret from Lucy without realising that there was unlimited list of things I just couldn't.

In the second it took to collect some form of thought, Lucy's question still remained unanswered. She rubbed her delicate, freshly manicured nails along her somewhat expensive sleek black pants, like I did when I felt adamant the world should swallow me up.

"Did you read a book?" It didn't take Lucy long to realise that today I wouldn't be cooperative, at all.

"Nineteen Eighty-Four" I muttered, my voice about as humble as the soft sprinkle of dew on a spring lawn. Lucy leaned in to hear my reply and her eyes glittered when she did.

"Ah, George Orwell's famous quest to explain the viciousness of a society that abandons freedom of thought. That's a challenging book Tess, whatever made you pick that one up?" Lucy asked, a perspicuous air of curiosity glazed itself onto her sunlit forehead.

"It was Evan's..."

_

* * *

Dawn hadn't yet burst thought the tarnished pink clouds that morning, yet the smell of brewing coffee flooded the room just as virulently as the coarse smell of old book pages._

_I hadn't been asleep very long. I don't know what ever possessed me to agree to the ridiculous endeavour that was cliff diving. I forget what Evan called it exactly, "a leap of faith"? Whatever it was, he hadn't mentioned the word 'intolerable' or 'dangerous' or the seemingly tiny, possibly trivial fact that the nearest beach happened to be a six hour drive from Mt. Thomas and that I was driving._

_Coffee kept me on the edge of consciousness, Evan brazenly fell asleep. And the long journey back home felt hazy and warm. A motley blur leaped to mind when I tried to remember what became of Evan. Unfortunately that morning hadn't quite been what yesterday promised. _

_I staggered out of bed alone, I had reason to. Redolence of coffee drove a harsh pain into my brain and I could just taste its vivid rapture and mellifluous texture float along the back of my tongue and draw me back into the artificial consciousness I'd so brilliantly perfected._

_Strange, I didn't remember brewing coffee. My co-ordination would have been too inept to perfect such a complicated manoeuvre as pouring any sort of liquid into a cup. But I didn't give it a second thought, my exciting fetish already made its way deep into the cavity of my mouth._

_Breakfast was out of the question, yesterday sucked out all the energy that morning usually possessed. Today already formed in the outset of my mind, I'd sleep on my little blue couch, the one that lured me every morning into its cushiony embrace. It became my pioneer to well-gotten sleep and would have been this particular morning, if I had gotten there first._

_Unfortunately there lay there a man whose grogginess seemed more intriguing than mine. Half hidden under my precious red blanket, he slept, oblivious to my peering eyes or the endearing balancing act a well forgotten book played out on his chest. It was a worn away, decent sized book, whose gray covers mat the dim light with its crumpled texture. The 'old book' smell was one that flounced from it, left so helplessly on Evan's fluctuating chest._

_I sat down beside him, a little upset that my little refuge had been unfairly snatched but more than a little relieved that he'd stayed over. I had only hoped he would, more sooner than expected it. We both knew that I placed restrictions on my happiness, boundaries that were a danger to cross. Fortunately for us both Evan never sought to play by anyone's rules._

_Pink silhouetted against his pale skin as the mid morning sun finally crawled through the window. It made him stir and he turned to face me unknowingly crushing the book under the colossal weight of his chest. _

_I tried to pull it out from under him, carefully judging by the flicker of his eyes underneath his thin eyelids whether he would wake or not. The final yanked out book cover felt more crushed then its proceeding yellow pages. I let it rest on the floor, I wanted to stay with Evan; there was something about watching him sleep that felt a little unnerving; satisfying but unnerving._

_There he laid, exclusively mine on an equally tired couch; auspiciously tired and ruggedly handsome. I didn't know what to make of myself really; I had passed up too many opportunities to be even remotely close to Evan that it seemed absurd to do so. What would he think if I were to just let go for an instant of time, dissolve away the thick wall of indifference and passionately kiss him long enough for time to feel distorted? That was the kind of Tess he wanted, one I didn't particularly want to be._

_The pink slowly faded off his confused forehead. I pulled my legs up against my chest, and rest my head against my crossed arms. I tilted my head in the direction his was and watched as the elegant sun beamed warm streaks across his lips and down his chin. A giddy smile crept across my face, I felt intrusive watching him sleep but at the same time privy to the natural, unknown Evan that was only ever present in blotched fantasies. My mind pictured what his thoughts might just be, locked deep in that profound mind of his, his little treasure trove of engrossing little secrets that no-one would ever come to know. It would seem that I knew little about the man on my couch, true he did confide in me but there was always this deep concern for myself that pushed me away from him; a kind of twisted narcism that helped me through the torture of every morning. _

_I wanted to know more about him, more about his passions and dreams and what made him the insightful character he was. For it was his ability to possess dreams that made them seem achievable._

_My hand crept past his cheek, grazing my knuckles against the fresh stubble on his chin. He stirred a little and rubbed his hand against where mine had just been, to rid his chin of an uncomfortable sort of itch and just like that he buried his head further into one of my couch cushions, already defaced with pools of his unsightly drool._

_I let him rest. It was the book that caught my attention more. I didn't ever picture Evan as a reading enthusiast. He was always well spoken and had a rare gift for the possession of various bits of knowledge but novels were objects even I only took to once in a while._

_The crumpled cover of the gray book left much to be intrigued by. It belonged to one of those series of soft cover books that looked completely discouraging on the outside. The only picture that adorned it was vague and rubbed out. An amorphous object seemed to be at its centre and even that was just a menagerie of unjoined lines. The title too was smudged with a huge blue ink stain that soaked through to the first page. I wasn't going to look at it again but an inquisitive spark took hold and I turned to the third page, one that barely held to the spine. _

_"'It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith his chinned nuzzled into his breast in an effort...'" I began to read aloud but felt silly doing so, so I skimmed through the next couple of words in silence. I engrossed myself deeply into that couple of lines of text that silently played out in my head. I felt the "vile wind" slip gush past me as it did Winston and gazed up at the overpowering slabs of concrete that were the "Victory Mansions" whose cluttered and grimy corridors were plagued with a dingy smell of "boiled cabbage and old rag mats". The pictures were all so thick and vivid that I found myself lost within hem. The book became captivating; its pale and esoteric character Winston, bade me through the first fifty pages, relentlessly surging me through the hideous existence of 'The Party' and the colossal dominance of 'Big Brother'. Silence was never perfectly attained in my little house until that morning. Absorbed so deeply in that novel Evan became a distant memory; a sketchy blur that was filtered away in my peripheral vision. _

_When the stark gray pictures of 'Oceania' faded I sought to read aloud again. _

_"'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words...'" a tiny flicker of red flew into sight and my heart plummeted into the roof of my stomach._

_"Keep goin' best to get through the first half fast before you think it's boring..." The book flew out of my hand. I didn't know how long he had been watching me but his voice was hoarse and low, he must have just woken._

_"I'm sorry, didn't mean to startle you. It is a good book though, you might just like it." Evan smiled and rubbed away the tired lines from under his eyes. I collected myself up with a smile and reached over towards the book to slide its satiny cover against the carpet. _

_My heart continued to thrash hard against my ribs and the nausea of evasiveness didn't dull. I didn't speak, though there was more than enough to say, Evan meanwhile burrowed his palms against his eyes and callously rubbed the daze of sleep from them. He sat, oblivious to my unsaid concern and picked up the book from under my hand, cushioning it on his lap. _

_"Sit" He pat the little space of blue that was almost hidden under a crumpled red blanket. I thought over the endeavour carefully and finally made the effort to sit next to him, squeezing my leg under me so that my knee poked dints into the thick upholstered arm. My PJ's drench in an awkward pasty texture, felt clammy against my skin and I felt the cool breeze from yesterday's open window prick the hairs up on nape of my neck. Evan spread the red blanket across my knees and took advantage of the little space we had to drape his arm across my shoulders, disregarding my discomfort. I could still smell yesterday in his clothes, that awful clingy smell of over salted seaweed and brittle sand. _

_As he tucked the red blanket under my left kneecap, he gave me a curious looking smile as if to say that my stark, washed over glaze of tender affection was completely bizarre. He flicked the pages under his thumb to find the one I was previously reading, the_ _comforting smell of old books tingled my nose again. _

_Upon finding the remnants of the paragraph I just read, Evan made a sort of awkward cough and began to speak, the huskiness of his morning voice still as hard as digestive biscuits._

_"You see" he pointed out, "the only thing wrong with these kinda books is that they only ever make sense once you've read the whole thing. It's kinda pointless stopping now, isn't it?" Evan asked holding the frail book open gently in his palm, his thumb and little finger creating a sort of frame. He pushed silently into my chest, motioning for me to read aloud. I felt too stupid to take up such a task but the faded gray words on the page beckoned and so did the wistful world of 'Oceania'. I took the book into my hands, its pages like thin crepes holding dearly to the sticky waxy glue on the spine. _

_I looked at Evan, who bore a sort of detached expression. I wanted to tell him that I didn't want to read, I mean who really "reads" these days? And who reads books that are so ancient their titles are unable to be discerned? But his tranquil blue eyes remain fixed on the page in front of us both. With a deep, sigh that yielded surrender, I began._

_"'The face of Big Brother swam into his mind, displacing that of O'Brien. Just as he had done a few days earlier, he slid a coin out of his pocket and looked at it. The face gazed up at him, heavy, calm, protecting: but what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache? Like a leaden knell the words came back at him: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH'". _

_Page 109 proved to be blank and desolate; the only word was a bold, black capitalised 'PART' with the Roman numeral of two beside it. I didn't know whether he wanted me to continue so I paused a while and let the dim brass coin fade gently from memory. A period of silence elapsed and I hadn't turned the page. A quick look up at Evan proved an answer. He sat numb, staring at the little temperature gauge I had stuck to the wall with Blutack, his eyes were glazed over and silent. He emitted no sound. I had cause to be concerned._

_"Evan?" I asked gently nudging him in the ribs with my elbow. "Do you want to keep going?" I didn't get a reply, even when he dragged his gaze away from the red turpentine on the wall._

_"Tess, can I ask you something?" he asked, not at all in answer to my question. His eyes cast down on the book before us, he wistfully shuffled the tips of his fingers against the yellowed pages; he licked his lips slightly to part them before he looked me earnestly in the eye, that hint of apprehension very stark and real._

_"Well, what is it?" I asked hesitantly. Evan's silence became troubling._

_"Would you ever betray me?" he asked emitting a defeated sigh. A kind of perplexed disappointment brewed within him, one that seemed difficult to understand. _

_"What kind of question is that?" I asked, knowing full well the extent of my betrayal of Evan. My cheeks stung vermillion and my stomach felt tired but Evan wasn't concerned with me, he couldn't have been, the way he gazed so uselessly at blank page 109 gave it away, he must have been speaking hypothetically, protecting someone elusive._

_"Would you ever hurt me to save yourself?" That question drove relentlessly into the pit of my stomach. Of course I'd lie and cheat and betray Evan if it guaranteed my survival, it was the selfish streak within me, one I couldn't bear to shed for my own protection. _

_There was a little bit of me that hated that narcissism, a little slice of me that would do_ _anything to protect Evan from any impending hurt, a little, tiny sliver of me that knew I only hurt people accidentally._

_"Of course I wouldn't betray you Evan. Why do you ask, is there something wrong?" I tried desperately to compress my selfishness into a little glass jar and hide it away but even my authentic concern fluttered over Evan as a dispensable piece of information, again he sat numb, listlessly picking at the corner of page 109._

_"Even if it meant your career?" Evan sighed. He knew that question would be difficult. I swallowed hard. There was something about the Force that defined Tess Gallagher, something that would be hard to give away but that little silver of unselfish me told me that even under the worst circumstances Tess Gallagher would sacrifice everything for Evan Jones, the man whom she tried to love. I shook my head but Evan didn't see, his eyes still glued to the blank page, his nail had conveniently made a split in the corner. Evan drew his gaze up to the sun kissed peach splash walls sighed heavily, a thick presence of dejection unable to be hidden._

_"Even if it cost you everything, your reputation, your family-" Evan stopped and his eyes pierced blue with austere, he looked me squarely in the eyes. "Even if it meant your life?" My eyes flicked down to the floor, I was shaken with the extent of his earnest but if life was something I would inevitably have to pay for someone else's happiness, I'd force myself to do so. I placed my hand on Evan's cheek and turned his head to face me, his gaze had escaped mine again and I wanted him to feel the authenticity of my words._

_"Even if it meant walking barefoot across broken bottles and having my eyes prod out with hot knitting needles!" I smiled hoping to coax that amicable smile of his from behind his numb glazed, distressed mask._

_It worked, if only for a second. A strained little smile revealed his pearly white teeth and enthusiasm sparked up in his cheeks. His contentment boiled up to a point where he messed up my curly mass of hair with his palm affectionately and he dug his nose into my cheek as he gave me a kiss._

_"Hot knitting needles?" he asked that notorious smile crept over his face. I laughed throwing the book back into his lap with complete disregard for its fragility._

_"Are we finishing this or what?" I asked._

_"What bit are we up to?"_

_"Part Two" I announced incredulously._

_"Part Two's a bit hectic..." Evan reminisced pulling a concerned face. I smiled in return carefully extricating myself from his half hug._

_"What you do say to coffee?" I questioned getting up from the couch and dusting off my clammy P.J.s. Evan gently rubbed his forehead._

_"Actually do you have anything for headaches?" Evan rubbed more vigorously into the side of his forehead._

_"Headaches? You never get those, something eatin' you Ev?" I asked a little perplexed, it was true. I envied Evan's remarkable ability to rarely attain a headache unless he ridiculously sculled a bottle of vodka._

_"Yeah funny that..." the luminous peach faded once more from his cheeks and I felt a lump of concern float to the pit of my stomach. He smiled half heartedly and shrugged carelessly while I was left without explanation to head to my little stash of Panadol by the bread basket. _

_Although his radical jovialness didn't surprise me there was something awkward about our little conversation, something he was purposely evading and it was my intention to find out._

* * *

Lucy smiled a seeping nostalgic smile, perhaps to comfort my lack of expression or maybe because the distant memory of Orwell's novel hung in deep in the pockets of her mind as something profound and engrossing. Whichever of the two it was Lucy spent a long time contemplating over it, rubbing the point of her chin with the tips of her fingers or smoothing over the sharp lines in her forehead with an equally smooth palm. While she sighed heavily my eyes floated along the line that the deep green fence made with the lustrous sky, contemplating the significance of silence.

Evan was the sole person who didn't make the lack of conversation feel intimidating; sometimes words didn't describe what I felt and Evan knew that perfectly well; with one look he could discern any kind of ambiguity I felt, he was the only one that could. There would be emptiness in the world without people like Evan; there was emptiness in my world now. My eyes fell down to the scratched out concrete beneath my feet. I missed him, terribly.

"Tess," Lucy finally breathed and I turned my face toward her. "Do you suppose he knew?" Lucy asked, the curiosity twinkled lusciously in her eyes. Lucy's question was a little strange, ambiguous in the least.

"Knew what?" I asked quaintly.

"Knew that he was going to die?" Lucy's question hit like the pungent taste of metal in the back of my throat. Of course that question crossed my mind, ever since that equivocal conversation with Evan, nevertheless I never acted on any suspicion of mine, perhaps because deep in that rotted core of mine I was too concerned of the ramifications I'd place upon myself. Time stirred again and this time I was mute, I pursed my lips awkwardly and wrapt my foot behind the peeling wooden leg of the bench.

"You didn't know Tess? You're a little quiet, maybe..." I cut Lucy off with a sharp look in her direction.

"I didn't think Evan's death could have ever classified as premeditated murder..."

_

* * *

The viscous paint on the wall of Evan's room still remained its awful striking shade of white, pale in comparison to the deep honey light of the now late afternoon sun. The happy hues of colour feigned peaceful ambience, splashed up against the walls as if nothing terrible ever took place in their midst, when in fact along the far wall, dressed in gray lines of shade lay the tangibly lifeless body of Evan Jones. He too was clothed in the perfect shade of pure white, tainted unfortunately with cruel shadow._

_My every move felt slow and hesitant. It took me hours to pick myself up off the floor and finally swallow the colossal truth that Evan ceased to exist. And when and if I finally stirred up the courage to walk into that room he would no longer be simply asleep or irritable. He would be empty; a mere shell of a once honourable man._

_I had never really seen a dead body before, not up close. I never had to encounter the sharp, relentless torture of unpredicted grief; the kind of malice that wraps chokes life out of you. Never, and I dreaded its thought._

_I remember watching movies where death looked like eternal sleep but they got that all wrong! Whoever said that a dead person looked simply asleep had no knowledge of death, just some ridiculous ideal to be painted across the minds children, not to scare them from the harsh reality set before them. _

_The husk that lay in front of me was not Evan. The thick rind that was presumably once mellow skin had turned a gruesome, spiritless gray. Gone were all the lavish traces of pretty pink, gone was all his jovialness and relentless spirit, gone; everything I loved and cherished. Gone was the man that epitomised strength._

_My stomach sunk to the very depths of my innards and the terrible pain of nausea drilled a deep hole into my chest. I firmly shut my eyes and calmed the swell of dizziness in my head. Tears pierced my cheeks, I dreaded the thought of approaching that lifeless husk, from which disappeared my glorious hero. _

_I swallowed hard and begrudgingly forced to close the distance between me and the shadow covered hospital bed. _

_The stark white of the sheets ran chilled shivers between my shoulder blades. I couldn't stand in front of this devoid, extinct shuck and feign some sort of dreaded longing when there was simply nothing there. Nothing but some disgusting, deformed piece of flesh. There was nothing to cry over, nothing to feel angst for. What was once hoped for had been lost and there was nothing I could do._

_The bitter smell of antiseptic overwhelmed me. A hypothetic pool of vomit seeped into my throat. The thick taste of apprehension ripped into my flesh. I covered my mouth. I ran. So fast that time felt numb. I ran straight out of the room._

_My forehead froze, pressed against the cold hospital wall but it sated the confusion. I clung mercilessly to this patch of cold plaster. The confusion numbed but the anger seared. Why did he have to leave me? Why? Was there nothing anybody could do to stop him? I kicked the wall. Did he want me to revel in this pathetic world without him? Didn't he understand that I needed him? The tip of my shoe bruised as I thrashed it into the wall. Why did he hurt me? Why did he just abandon me? _

_It wasn't long before my curious behaviour caught the attention of a couple of newly rostered nurses; they sat me down with a little plastic cup filled with lukewarm water. One of the elegantly dressed nurses was sat beside me in case I had the urge to attract attention again. Apparently my behaviour wasn't irrational but it was scaring some of the younger, more influential patients on the ward._

_Time dragged on like thick boots in mud; each moment more heavy and overbearing then the previous. I sat deflated, waiting for something to swallow me up before I exhausted every last bit of energy I had left. I lent carelessly into the chair, my arms splayed across its more rigid ones, a sharp line of plastic embedded itself into my neck as my head fell back to rest on the back of the chair. I stared deeply into a field of sickly white splashed against the ceiling, my breath laboured and completely retired; I wanted to die. The selfish thoughts of my abandonment faded and I was possessed with self hate. It wasn't he that abandoned me, I abandoned him._

_Slowly everything faded off into the distance and I was left with a void of thought, a pain stricken heart and a careful soul._

_"Excuse me Sergeant, are you okay?" The nurse tapped a firm finger into the bone of my shoulder. The pain awoke me quickly and I rolled my head over in her direction, to stare blankly into her abysmally dark eyes before I lunged myself into a more normal position._

_"Is there anyone I can call for you?" the nurse asked hesitantly again. I crossed my arms over my stomach, one hand rubbed deeply against my forehead, fingers lost in strewn hair._

_"I know that it must be hard for you..." the nurse began her usual empathy implied line but I would hear none of that. I collected myself up and as difficult as it was to walk, I meandered a couple of steps down along the corridor before a firm tug at my arm pulled me aside, it was that pestilent nurse; she begged me to stop but I wrenched my arm from her grip and bade slowly down the end of the corridor ignoring her concerned cries. _

_I buried my fingers in my hair as I walked, twisting my matt hair into frenzied knots; the pain of guilt was just so overbearing. To think, that If I loved him as much as I professed, I would have noticed his sickness. If I cared about him as much as I said, I would have noticed the twelve packets of Panadol he exhausted. If I cherished him as much as I claimed, I wouldn't have been so selfish. The seer of guilt burnt wretchedly in my mind, my muscles were fatigued. I wished so wholeheartedly that my body would shut down and collapse where I stood. I wanted to escape. _

_The long walk down a narrow corridor felt perpetual, like a convicted man my ankles shackled in imaginary steel shuffled carelessly along the floor. The dark doors of the hospital ward felt like a tiny speck of blue in the far distance filled with a flock of coloured blurs rushing up and down it with chaotic speed._

_Despair pushed me into the closest part of wall, there I could relax and blur my emotions into non-existence and paint over myself a new coat of determination; something to force my crippled body out of that corridor. _

_The hospital walls grew dark and gray. People meshed aimlessly in between them. Some glared pitifully at my washed away face; some stared at it, redolent of spiteful grief. But nobody cared and I didn't blame them, I didn't deserve anybody's pity._

_I stood, back plastered against the wall, waiting for nothing. No, maybe not nothing, waiting for some kind of relief. Perhaps somebody would notice that I was missing from the station or Chris would come by soon, or maybe I would feel some sort of unyielding reprieve? That through Evan's death I would no longer feel the constraint of fear that I felt so heavily in his presence. He was no longer he to protect me, but no longer here for me to fear. _

_I sighed; the ache that collected in my chest buried itself into my stomach. I wanted someone to hold me and nobody was there._

_"Tess..." the calm, voice of Tom Croydon felt soothing to the ear. I could feel his strong figure waft through the corridor to face me. I turned to face him and tears blazed their way down my cheeks like a relentless flood._

_"Oh Tess..." soothed Tom Croydon as his enveloped me in his arms and _

_I wailed like a spiteful child that just lost a beloved toy. He pat the crown of my head sympathetically, smoothing down the hectic, torn apart curls on my head._

_"Mel filled me in," he whispered carefully into my ear and rubbed my back sympathetically as the torrid gush of wretched tears stained his shirt. _

_I retreated from his warm embrace as the potent figure of Dr. Mel appeared beside, brusquely._

_"Tom Croydon, Can I please have a word." She waited not to catch his attention like any mere courteous person would but tore him away from me abruptly. _

_They were not standing very far so I caught strands of information that was left unknown to me before, so as to not excite me. _

_"...poisoned with nonlethal doses of arsenic over a period of three months. The last dose may have been the last straw but we'll have to wait for the coroner's report..." Mel whispered in a low voice, the Boss nodded sternly and replied something very brief. Mel vanished as quickly as she had appeared and the Boss looked upon me once more, upon my harsh, emotion glazed face. I smudged away the last fragment of mascara I still had on my cheeks. _

_"Have you been in to..." the Boss motioned to the door that was Evan's room only moments ago but I shook my head firmly and clasped my eyes tightly._

_"I can't" I whispered hoarsely and shifted my gaze hesitantly to the floor. The Boss emitted a hopeless sigh; Evan's death came as a more poignant shock that I had thought it had. I swallowed away the self pity lodged in my throat;_

_"Somebody's going to have to call Dylan." I mentioned as I rubbed my palms against my dark blue pants, to rid them of sticky tears. The Boss shook his head slowly, the facade of experienced cop shone out for the few seconds that he still realised he had authority._

_"No Tess, we can arrange that later; it'll be best if we get you home..." but I cut the Boss of with a sharp shake of my head._

_"But I want to do it Boss. I'll call the Commander too; it's best he hears it from me." I gulped, no matter how hard I swallowed the guilt of my lack of responsibility would never evade me. How could I ever let it come so far? _

_The Boss opened his mouth to speak, possibly to try and retort against my attempt to plummet myself into further despair, he knew the kind of agony I felt. But no words came from his mouth and I took that as silent admission of approval. I took the formality of the condolence phone call in my stride, it would be easy. I sighed; it had to be easy. _

_I turned to walk away, finally to reach that tiny speck of blue at the end of the corridor but the uneasy shifting movement made by the Boss caught the corner of my eye._

_"Tess," he said a tiny flare of deep empathy sparked up in his placid blue eyes. "I want you to tell me when you feel overwhelmed; don't feel you have to sit through tomorrow with the Hommies breathing down your back." he smiled at me and I couldn't help but emit a little half smile of my own, the Boss knew me too well; knew that I would put out all stops to get involved with this case, to catch the vile creature that snuffed out the precious life of Evan Jones but he respected my need for leg room._

_I collected up the remnants of myself splattered against the bloodied floor of the hospital casualty ward. I walked from behind those solemn dark doors a new, untarnished woman, a new Tess Gallagher._

* * *

"A new Tess Gallagher?" Lucy asked, her inquisitiveness was seemingly apparent.

"A Tess Gallagher that wouldn't fall to pieces..." I hinted at my own deeply hidden frailness, the one that crept up on my when I least wanted or expected it to.

"I see," Lucy pursed her lips and instead let a tuft of air come out her nostrils.

"Evan's death tore you apart. You don't think you were liable to 'fall to pieces'?" Lucy asked delicately although her question ate away at the core of Tess Gallagher.

"Liable maybe, but I wasn't going to let myself." I said firmly, Lucy needed to know that I wasn't soft; unlike her I a well earned dignity to uphold. I saw the glitter of green fade dismally from Lucy's bright eyes, she felt dejected; just as the sunlight softened against her face so did her smile, she gazed upon the scratched out concrete beneath our feet.

"You weren't going to let yourself grieve, is that it Tess?" Lucy didn't look up at me when she asked that integral question, unlike her usual concerned actions this time Lucy bade a confused demeanour; it startled me, I was too used to Lucy's forthright explanations. And this time she gave me no time to answer her question; instead she filled it with another disappointed question.

"What's wrong with grieving Tess?" Lucy scratched out a round cornered square on the concrete before me; her tone of voice rang a pitiful shade of navy blue. I wanted to answer her question but I didn't know how. Grief was something alien, a feeling that I wasn't aloud to feel.

"You didn't allow yourself to grieve because you insisted that Evan's death was purely your fault?" Questions flowed from Lucy's lips like a hungry river and she gave me no time to answer them. I sighed deeply, to alleviate the pain caught amongst my ribs.

"Evan's death was my fault" I reiterated, gravely but Lucy would not hear of it. She explained this concept to me before and would not waste the time to restate it. I remember clearly that I was to think of Evan's death as a simple twisted series of events that bore no connection to me, not directly anyway. But this explanation I felt stupid to believe. Lucy noticed my discontent and scribbled it on the yellow sheet in front of her.

"Have you ever heard of the five stages of grief Tess?" Lucy asked, her pen slipped off the edge of the page and she didn't bother to continue.

"Yes" I confirmed and I sunk deplorably into my seat.

"Utter nonsense" a smile tickled her lips but she concealed it just as quickly. "There no need to section grief up like some psychological disease, with symptoms and stages..." Lucy continued obviously building up strong argument.

"I don't think it's a disease Lucy" I said simply and my curt manner cut a surprised look in Lucy.

"Then, why do you insist on restricting any kind of emotion you feel toward Evan? Did he do something wrong Tess?" Lucy asked sympathetically. I sighed with impatience; sometimes I doubted Lucy's professionalism. There were some things that even Lucy couldn't comprehend.

"You just don't understand Lucy..." I mumbled, regrettably. I had forgotten that people like Lucy thought they had possessed all knowledge of the human being in the palm of their hand.

"Understand?" Lucy's voiced pricked with fervour, unlike what I had expected. "I want to understand Tess. I want to understand what it is, so abhorrent that makes you numb your emotions because I don't understand, it is why I ask..." Lucy gulped and gave me a look of stern zeal. I could see that if her profession aloud her she'd probably envelop me in a warm felt hug, she was a zealous empathiser.

"I think I don't have the right to grieve..." I hesitated; my palms gripped the wooden panel of the bench firmly.

"Because you couldn't bring yourself to forget about yourself for one second?" Lucy suggested, unknowingly dictating my innermost thoughts.

I felt an anger surge of hurt shoot through my ribs like metal dart pinked with jagged tips.

"I couldn't tell him I loved him because I thought he'd hurt me, I couldn't be earnest with him because I didn't think he was deserving of my trust; I couldn't even stay in that bloody room for one second without feeling sick with guilt! I wanted to love him just like he loved me; selflessly, unconditionally but all I gave was nothing, nothing!" Something in me stirred me to shout; the inner anxiety in me splurged into a pool of messy tears. I tried my best to wipe them quickly from my cheeks, to conceal the red that blazed savagely upon them." I hate being so selfish Lucy, I really do but I can't make it stop!" My voice gained a hoarse whisper while inside the bulging clot of pain burst and spread its putrid venom within me. I closed my eyes; there was nothing else to say. This vicious phlegm of self guilt and hate had engulfed me for weeks and the desire to rid myself of its thick residue was great.

Lucy felt enlightened. She placed a soothing palm on my shoulder.

"You're not truly selfish Tess. You just have a vehement desire to protect yourself, at all costs." Her voiced mellowed and he tilted head let the sun glitter through her hair. I bit my lip.

"You can't tell me there's nothing selfish about that." I protested weakly. Lucy tried to coax out of me a little unselfish smile.

"You said you gave him nothing." she began while a smile of thick nostalgia swept across her cheeks. "But 'if you loved someone, you loved him and when you nothing else to give, you still gave him love'". A sparkle of recognition twinkled in my tear smeared eyes. I recognised that quote from Orwell's book. A smile gently livened up my face. Lucy cared, when I said that there was no-one who cared I lied; Lucy cared, Lucy understood.

"Tess, I can tell you right now that amidst all your animosity toward him, all your projected self concern and all your neglect, nobody took a greater place in your heart than he and for that sole reason alone you have the utmost right to grieve. Don't pile it away, let yourself hurt." Lucy's voice died down to a mere whisper but still filled me with solid confidence.

There was much more I wanted to say to Lucy that late afternoon but the sun caught a late shadow on the garden gnome's blood red cap and I knew it was time to leave.

Lucy lifted herself off the parched white bench and dusted her sleek pants of flaking white skin. Her shoulders rose violently with her last unyielding sigh of relief and she donned her famous compassionate smile. I got up too to join her even though I desperately wanted to stay and I followed Lucy's to her parched gray steps and her heavily painted white fly screen door. She turned before she entered her clinic, a last little reminder popped into her mind.

"And how do you feel today Tess?" she asked, I almost thought she would have forgotten. I chuckled silently and gave her a look of fond disbelief.

"Relieved." I sighed, it finally gained a name. The warm smile on her face only grew more gentle as she gave me a firm nod of acknowledgement.

She walked me out her amber hued corridor, out into her most elegant sitting room.

"Don't forget to finish that book of yours Tess. That ending is truly terrifying. I'd hate to see you miss it." With one last smile she bid me farewell and retreated again to the wilderness of her garden Elysium.


	6. Chapter 6

I'm horrible at smut and there's something so unsatisfying about this chapter that makes it a little overwhelming, well that's my opinion in any case. I apologise for my ignorance and hopefully you'll see through it too. It was incredibly hard to write though -this one particular scene- because I found myself so caught up in pictures that I could hardly swallow. I wish I could share them with you, those very same very vivid pictures but I suppose there really is no substitute for them; words can only do so much. Enjoy it still, you might just.

Oh and I apologise solemnly for the length. You know when someone tells you to stop doing something and you do it anyway, just to defy them? I had one of those moments writing this chapter. Take it bit by bit unless you're a speed-reader in which case I envy you completely.

There is some reference to Holden Caulfield from 'The Catcher in the Rye', see if you can spot it.

My thanks to both Ms. Suzanne Vega and Mr. J. D. Salinger and Pachelbel (not that they would know…)

_This one's for Ella because I miss her._

Chapter Six

Sunlight speckled Lucy's driveway like motley autumn leaves. Alluring and inviting, her little cottage clinic had the most picturesque sort of comfort.

Worn orange terracotta roof tiles patched with dark mould rest on the house's crown while the remainder of the house was dressed in dark blackberry-red brick.

The windows were wooden but old and their skin flaked much like the old bench of yesterday, when one swipe of your hand across the window ledge would create a snowfall of white flakes.

There was a porch, a very small and indistinct porch, hidden in a deep shade that the roses made, entwined so savagely in the porch trim. And there were two, cream, calved out posts, the paint already worn but the wood still tangible, smooth and cold.

I sat wistfully on Lucy's porch, in a cold iron chair. Yesterday's black cat had cuddled itself around the leg of another white iron chair and her fur glistened in the tinsel like glare of the deep morning sun. She basked endlessly in its heat; her tail slicked the air with the deepest feel of total content. I envied the cat and the appeasement strewn across her whiskers because I had long forgotten what happiness had felt like and I longed so wholeheartedly for its rapture.

I checked the watch on my wrist. I was technically already ten minutes late, a seer of guilt had washed over me suddenly but I quickly forgot it. Punctuality was a virtue that I surely possessed but today I didn't feel like being Tess, so I slumped further into my chair.

I watched a curious fly tickle the tip of the cat's nose but she was too self consumed and soon feel asleep, her paws splayed out across the lemon yellow paving.

As the fly became bored and flew off into the distance I caught a look at the delicate garden before me. I had never noticed it before, I don't know how I could have missed it really, aside from it neatness and correctness it was this marvellous display of the most immense colour, splashed out openly on a thinly trimmed apple green lawn, only held in by fragile picket fencing. It was neat and trim, just like Lucy but also just as flamboyant and vivacious as she. Lavender and blood red roses and bright mounds of sparkling yellow daisies and crisp pink fairy floss camellias, bright clashing bluebells and a whole corner coloured in the most pure of white perennials and dazzling deep purple lilies.

It reminded me of Mrs. Cat's garden. I called her Mrs. Cat because I thought Beatrice was an ugly name, and because she had this marvellous collection of black porcelain cats on her windowsill. There must have been at least twenty-four of them and I remember them all having names of some sort, at least I pretended that they did. I used to lie on Mrs. Cat's thick, luscious lawn, surrounded by a thicket of daisies that were so yellow that they made the sun jealous sometimes. I'd watch the sun glance over the smooth silhouettes of each pretty little kitten while the deep smell of a brilliant menagerie of flowers would tickle my nose. And sometimes Bridie would come along with Charlie and Theo and we'd all play hide and seek in Mrs. C's barley fields until it was so late that we either got hungry or knew that Mum was finally home.

I wanted to lie down on Lucy's lawn, just like I did Mrs. C's, just to see the blanket of colour rush along the lawn but even sitting here, you could still smell the thick perfume of blooming flowers and could only wonder the amount of care Lucy took in her stunningly little masterpiece of a garden.

I checked my watch again but the luscious, honey yellow roses distracted me with their sweet perfume and I didn't seem to mind that I was already half an hour late. Late, no, late only in the sense that I should have been cushioned deep in the thickly soft skin of Lucy's dark black couch and I wasn't.

I didn't understand what stopped me right before her front door; I didn't expect to feel anything this morning apart from the same numbness that approached every morning recently. But somehow, today, a deep and uncomfortable sort of fear rumbled in the pit of my sore chest. Today I didn't want to see Lucy, well I wanted to see her, I just didn't want to speak to her. Although she gave off this radiating comfort and she had the most profound sense of empathy, I just didn't want to speak about Evan.

I relived that horror last night, more vividly than I had ever before. I had stumbled across a shirt of his, hidden sheepishly under the forest of junk under my bed that I had collected over the years. It hadn't been washed and it was still drenched in his exotic smell, that smell of Evan that made his every embrace feel so secure.

Last night I sat, not to peer listlessly into my bleached ceiling but I sat curled up in a tight ball, my thick red woollen blanket my only armour. I sat clutching this thin blue shirt that used to be Evan's, my nose buried in its rough fibre, so synonymous with his rugged, affectionate charm. It reminded me of what he used to represent. Effervescent, extroverted Evan, cunning and stealthy but at the same time the most gentle and respecting man I had ever known.

Dawn flared through today's clouds like the vociferous toll of a steeple bell. It hadn't woken me though, I couldn't sleep; I was awake before the sky had turned navy blue.

When today's sky was still indigo, I laid awake in bed, not glaring aimlessly into dull gray ceiling but I gently closed my eyes and watched the rushed picture of a not so distant memory wash over the back of my eyelids in swirling bright colours...

* * *

_Blue. Nothing had ever been so pungently blue before, it was a perfect kind of hypergognic blue with no fragment of a cloud in sight and the only little specks of white were the graceful gambols of highflying seagulls. _

The horizon waited for the triumphant setting sun, whose face blushed pink like that of a plump ripe peach. But not even she, who stained the sky a gentle red, could tarnish the elegant blue. It felt too perfect and I envied seagulls and their infinite space.

_The cold taste of seawater was caught in the wind. It was only autumn, still warm enough to dip your feet into the water or stroll along the beach but somehow Evan and I ended up drenched, even though I said I wouldn't be swimming._

_His just clean red t-shirt clung sluggishly to his slender muscles and the heavy wet denim of his jeans was sprinkled with a layer of fine sand. But not even the streams of water pouring down his face from his strawy wet hair could wash away his excited smile._

_He had a shiny tightly packaged parcel hidden behind his back. He'd hidden it so that I might just think that it was something irresistible and important. He'd teased me for a while with that dubious smile of his and even resisted my treacherous eyes._

_I had tried to tackle him but I only brought him down to his knees before I slipped on a slimy piece of horrid seaweed and he sprinted off down the deserted coast into the torrid yellow of the setting sun._

_"Evan! Show me!" I scolded, out of breath. Sand felt strewn in my hair and cold-water still dripped down my back. I had one arm around his neck and the other rummaged behind his waist to try and catch a hold of his wrist. The smile across his cheeky face was unceasing. I could just watch his eyes glimmer at the prospect of my torture, every time I'd reach out for the carefully concealed parcel he drew it away further from reach. _

_With one strong sweep of his terrifyingly strong arms, he pulled me up against him and wrapt his arms tightly around my waist. Our wet clothes clung together; Evan's chest felt sticky and uncomfortable and inside me grew a faint discomfort, which was only made worse by the heat of Evan's breath. Evan didn't mind in the least, Evan was drawn to intimacy like flies to rotting meat, any chance of getting remotely close to me was great cause to be excited and he flocked to the opportunity, whenever it presented itself._

_But Evan's eyes glimmered a more serious hue then usual and he found my little sheepish smile a little amusing. It was that smile that let Evan hold me a little bit closer than he had ever done before, that little smile that stopped me from pushing him away. _

_"Let me see, please?" I asked this time, my voice spiked with a tinge of intimacy. My eyes were drawn away from his and only the tips of my fringe floated along his delicate forehead in a half pleasing kind of way. I dared not look into his eyes, Evan always looked at me as if he felt I was the most beautiful creature on Earth and that look drew tight knots in my stomach and made it so difficult to breathe._

_"Please?" I whispered again, politely. Still my eyes didn't meet with his and I drew outlines of the letters on his sticky wet chest._

_He pressed his forehead against mine and drew his mouth close to my ear._

_"Only if you give me a kiss," he whispered seductively. I felt the heat fluctuate off my cheeks as I turned that awful crimson shade. The thick heat of his low voice was intense and tickled the delicate skin on my neck. I gazed up at his eyes; he was playfully serious. Soft traces of pink in his cheeks didn't hide the elusive sparkle of desire in his eyes. He always liked the thought of me kissing him; I suppose he found something comforting in the way I kissed him, or he revelled in the knowledge that it was exclusive and platonic._

_I closed my eyes and my stomach filled with a stagnant sort of excitement. Amidst the sticky heat from his wet t-shirt, the warm caress of his smooth skin felt incredible. His nose rubbed against mine as he gingerly leaned in to kiss me but the stagnant excitement suddenly bubbled and perturbed me. I tried to back away but Evan still held an omnipotent grip on my waste, so tight I felt the heat of his arm through the cotton in my dress. Amidst a hidden sort of sigh, wracked with the bitter hurt of dejection, Evan looked at me, silently disappointed. All he wanted was a kiss._

_I didn't want to test his patience and I was reluctant to displease him and although the thought of kissing him felt warm and enthralling, I just couldn't. I made a promise to myself long ago that I would succumb to Evan's never failing desire to love me but I knew that inside there was always a piece of me that didn't want to let go._

_I wrapt my arms around his cold neck, drawing myself just a tiny bit closer into our awkward embrace. The forgotten present still remained hidden behind his back and there was little chance of retrieving it now. _

_I buried my fingers in his hair and stroked a patch of skin behind his ear with my thumb. And then, as he closed his eyes I drew my palms across his forehead, just to rub away those anxious lines and I drew along the length of his hairline, gentle lines across his fleshy cheeks and outlined his gently rough lips and then my hands found themselves buried in Evan's hair again, his gently sea soaked hair._

_I could feel his body just crave for me to conform to his fantastic whim, he opened his eyes again and when he did they frantically followed mine with hungry desire. But I only pressed my cheek against his and softly whispered into his ear._

_"If you show me what you've got hidden behind your back, I might just consider it." I buried my nose into his shoulder, taking one soft sniff of the damp smelling Evan and one harsh embrace of his wet yet built chest._

_"Alright" he said, I felt the heat of the sad note in his voice. He was disappointed but willing to play along and so he let go of me and revealed this shiny tightly packaged parcel in the palm of his hand. _

_It was flat and rather book shaped without any conspicuous corners or bumpy sides, packaged in a matt sort of pink with a tiny bit of curling ribbon at its top. He handed it to me carefully, precious it seemed and I handled the package suspiciously, unaware of any impending danger that lurked behind the matt pink wrapping paper. Evan chuckled. _

_"Well, go on. Open it." he smiled and I caught the subtle glance of uncertainty in his eyes. He didn't think I would like it._

_I tore off the paper, without any concern for the ribbon or the carefully placed sticky tape. I ripped through the middle just where I knew the title might be._

_It was a coffee coloured, beige maybe, a C.D. book thing. One of those fold out books that has a collection of two to three C.D.s and a little hidden pocket for a booklet. The pale woman on the front cover was draped in dark, accented, black clothes and haunting lipstick. She sat purposely on a small black stool and her legs crossed met at a point near a dark shadow on the right and her shoes shone lustrously in the segmented sunlight._

_"Retrospective, the best of Suzanne Vega." I read. A smile curled itself against my cheeks. "How did you know?" I asked, the glint of uncertainty in Evan's glance changed to one of subtle relief._

_"I didn't" he furrowed his brow, a little perplexed at my question. I tilted my head curiously. Evan sighed._

_"Okay, so I rummaged through your C.D. cabinet and saw a couple of her albums piled up." He smiled cheekily, that pearly set of white teeth peered villainously from behind his luscious red lips._

_"Observant" I said giving him an impressed sort of smile but Evan quickly dismissed that, his mind on matters more important._

_"Where's my kiss?" he asked suddenly and I hadn't thought this part of the plan through thoroughly. _

_"Mmm…" I hemmed. Evan arms had already slinked their way around my waist again, drawing me closer to him. "You have to catch me first!" I laughed and Evan's slight grip waned. I broke free from his grasp and sprinted as fast as I could across the sand. The slow sand stole my feet to the ground and weighed me down significantly. Evan who chose a more careful path on the wet sand soon caught up and I found myself tackled ruthlessly into the coarse sand._

_I screamed childishly, my whole back plastered itself in brittle dry sand and the clinging wet of my clothes brushed savagely against my skin again. Evan pinned my shoulders down so harshly that I couldn't move. He was a little too close for comfort now, palms pressed against my shoulders, his body half slumped against mine, his chest exhausted with uncaught gasps._

_"Just one" Evan managed to whisper between gasps, I was in no position to argue but I knew Evan wouldn't touch me if I didn't let him. The gap between us grew narrower as Evan tested my reluctance. The weight of his body made it hard to breathe and lustful intimacy thwart thinking._

_"Please" Evan whispered again making sure that he didn't take his eyes off me, instead his determined gaze tore savagely into my determination. I was past the point where swallowing became difficult and sweat congregated in heavy pools on my palms. I wanted to avert my gaze from him, to distract myself and imply an excuse but he was so very close and so very entrancing that I couldn't._

_'Oh, it's only a kiss, one little kiss' I heard a little voice inside me whispered, a tiny little whisper that seemed to sound so pronounced. I felt a deep tightness in my chest, what was happening with me? What was this perverse voice saying? I whispered to the little voice: 'I promised myself that I wouldn't let myself get into this kind of awkward situation, with anybody, especially Evan'. 'But it isn't awkward' the voice hummed again. 'Of course it's awkward! I spat to the little voice trying so desperately to force it to dissolve. 'You also promised to let him into your heart…' the little voice chided 'Tess Gallagher doesn't go back on her promises…'_

_Evan's eyes were still fixated on mine like some relentless spell; they pleaded silently for a little lenience, just one kiss, that's all, it wasn't the world, just a little 'cheap thrill'…_

_A twang of guilt surged through me, I didn't want to hurt him, he cherished me but I couldn't possibly let him scorn me, that little sliver of me that was so vulnerable. 'What if he hurts me?' I asked the little voice. There! It wouldn't have anything smart to say to that! But the little warmth of a whisper stirred still. 'See the way he looks at you?' it whispered, 'How could anyone with such fervent desire, ever hurt you?' I sighed. It was right. No one had ever looked at me the way Evan did, no one had ever been genuine enough to do so. It was Evan's complacency in me that reassured me that there were decent enough people still living on this earth, people who loved and cared unconditionally and regardless. His security broke away the dense walls that surrounded the inner passionate me and as redeeming and gorgeous as that felt understandably there still remained that little chuck of Tess that was so defensive, so cynical and unworthy that I built up an underlying sort of resistance. I couldn't shake of the burden of ambivalence. I waited anxiously, unsure of what to do but secretly still hoping that Evan would still hover, just inches away from my lips because undeniably his intimacy felt comfortable. _

_But he was tried of waiting, his arms were strained with the task of holding his own weight above me and he too felt it uncomfortable to breathe. With a gentle sigh, he shifted his gaze and with that lifted his palms off my shoulder and begun to shuffle himself onto his side. _

_A vat of anxiousness compressed itself inside me like a can being crushed and out of dire passion and need for his incredible closeness, my arms lunged around his neck and I pulled him down toward me, savagely pressing my lips against his. He collapsed on top of me but after his startled shock sated he felt content to be eaten up by my raging desire. Passion seared through my blood and I embedded my fingers in his hair, the fear of any imminent hurt dissolved and I let vehement love bruise itself against my skin. He kissed me deeply, his lips luscious and moist, grasping so hungrily for mine that when he stopped to catch his breath I almost felt exhausted. My arms splayed eagerly down his back, searching somewhat frenziedly for the end of his t-shirt. My fingers found it still when they brushed against the rim of his jeans. They buried themselves cheekily under his sticky wet shirt and crawled gently up his mellifluous skin, I felt Evan's breath quicken as I moulded my palms into his back. His forehead pressed monstrously against mine just to deepen the kiss, Evan's mouth ached for the gentle warmth of my lips. The graze of his powerful arms against my sides made my stomach twirl into spasmodic knots and he ravenously gripped my shoulders with his fingers. His knee ungraciously bore apart my thighs as Evan made himself just that little more comfortable, my body bared heavily the feel of his slender stomach and my legs wrapt viciously around his. _

_Tired with the feel of supple lips he tore his away and sheepishly caught a few hurried gasps of air but it wasn't long before the feel of his velvety soft skin just below my ear pricked the hairs on the back of my neck. Soft kisses streamed their way down my delicate neck and the hot tickle of tender lips melted against its base. _

_My cheek found itself buried in coarse sand while Evan lips probed deeper and deeper into my flesh, the heat so agonising that my eyes screwed up and let off a gentle moan. Evan took that as a hint of unsated desire and fed his hand up my chest in haste but there were no buttons on my innocent white slip dress and somehow I felt relieved. _

_Sand rubbed harshly against my ear and although he'd long forgotten the taste of my lips I still wanted to feel the thick heat of his breath against my cheeks and the tender prod of his gentle nose. I pulled up his chin to my mouth and felt the patter of his wet lips brush against mine again and his relentless need to devour me completely. But something jerked him away and for a flicker of a moment the passion ceased. Anxiously, I opened my eyes to see piercing blue, glitter fondly in the remaining light of the glowing sunset. My hands retreated from underneath his wet shirt and gently caressed the back of his neck, the tips of my fingers wandered aimlessly through his matted hair. The tip of my nose rubbed against his affectionately and I gently licked my lips, I raised my mouth a little higher just to feel the rapture of his fiery kiss but he didn't want to do that anymore._

_"What's wrong?" I asked, the role reversal didn't hit me at first. But I knew secretly that nothing was wrong, Evan simply took the moment to gaze deeply into my eyes and whisper a gentle, non verbal kind of 'I love you' that genuinely spread a warm smile across my cheeks._

_The stirring hurt of adrenaline let my close my eyes again while Evan kissed my cheek sweetly and when his intoxicating kiss spread quickly back to my lips I felt the adrenaline die down quickly. Evan heaved a heavy sigh as a long lasting passionate kiss turned into something a little more profound, something only shared by few. _

_A strange sort of comfort collected in my stomach, I didn't want him to ever stop, I felt so safe with the weight of his warm body pressed against mine. I felt safe with _Evan_ and I'd never felt that before. My arms ventured yet again down his sticky wet shirt and I half embraced him, the clingy feel of his bright red shirt caught against my heavenly white dress._

_The longevity of the moment soon passed, much too soon for my liking and the warm deep feel of his kiss soon faded. But he gently kissed my cheek, just in parting and for a while I lay completely relaxed, my body sunk in cold comforting sand while inside I was flooded with the most peaceful sense of sleep._

_Evan had shifted himself back onto his side but he was reluctant to leave me. His arm strayed gently across my chest and his fingers played delightfully amongst my stiff dry curls._

_I opened my eyes and Evan lay so close, his hand softly brushed my forehead of curls. In need of his gentle warmth I shuffled that little bit closer to him and buried my nose into the warm flesh of his neck._

_I didn't want to leave, I wanted to lie there with him on the gruff sand until morning, I wanted to spend the night wrapt ever so deeply in his arms but the wind shivered down my arms and Evan felt the goose bumps on my shoulders. The warm skin of his palms gently smoothed away the cold on my arm and he moved my head aside so he could give me an affectionate sort of hug._

_His hot breath poured down my neck and his romantically gruff voice whispered softly into my ear,_

_"You've got the late shift tomorrow..." It was typical of Evan to talk about work when he wanted to hint that he had to go home. But I pressed my finger against his lips, I didn't want him to make excuses, I wanted him to be here with me, I had secretly always craved that and this perfect advantage wouldn't escape either of us. I drew him so very close to me that escape was almost impossible and every so often when I felt a little less burdened by the heat of exhaustion I subtly kissed his ever-familiar lips and soaked myself in a glowing sort of comfort._

"_Mmm, Tessy…" he managed in between kisses and the soothing caress of my palms along his back. I loved it when he called me Tessy, many people did but it was when Evan said it that it grew another meaning. When I didn't let him hug me, or kiss me or just even touch me at all he always had that way of saying my name that cut into me and reigned down this compelling kind of affection. I felt married to him when he said it._

_The low chuckle in his voice felt sweet. "You're not movin' are ya?" he laughed, his warm heat soaked into my neck. I shook my head brusquely and Evan drew his arms down my back._

"_We can't stay here. You're cold and…" Evan began but an unforgiving twang pelt the base of my stomach and I pulled my head away from his shoulder and looked him sternly in the eyes._

"_Don't…" I said harshly, placing a firm palm against his chest. "Please don't…" my voiced pleaded and Evan enveloped me in his arms tightly and drew up the last little bit of strength I had left._

"_Come on, let's go home." He whispered in my ear and somehow home felt like such a nostalgic kind of word that I let my tight grip around Evan slip away a little and Evan gently pried the rest away._

_He lifted himself off the brittle sand, it poured off his jeans and landed carelessly on my thin white cotton dress. Evan towered above me; I could see his eyes still glint fervently at me. He held out his strong arm to help me up but I resisted and dug my feet deeply into the sand. Even though the blue of the sky had darkened and the tide would soon wash in I felt too safe to leave._

_"Tess?" Evan asked a little bemused while I brushed the sand off my forehead and fixated myself with the blue of the sky. When he asked again I poked my toes from out of the sand and lifted my feet into the air so that the sand poured down my slim calves._

_"I've got sand in my toes" I muttered to Evan whose towering figure sort of shrugged over me. I didn't pay attention to what he was doing as he bundled me up into his arms, I just laid a fatigued head against his immense shoulder and felt the breeze gush through my hair as he ran through the sand._

_The heavy noise of his feet against dry wood bothered me but it was only went a felt a sudden lurch of weightlessness that I opened my eyes, and I thought I saw the sky drop until I felt the rush of sobering ice cold water through my dress. I plummeted lifelessly through a haze of silent green, my waterlogged lungs didn't bother me until a felt a spur of hurt in my head, I ignored it still and a surge of cold pressed heavily against my chest and I sunk deeper and deeper into the peaceful bosom of the sea. The calm resilience of silence lifted me up from the water and for a moment I felt so weightless that I started to fly, only then a sudden ripple in the water let me open my eyes and seeing a field of thick murky green I started to panic. Salt burnt my throat as I mistakenly swallowed a mouthful of acrid sea. Water pushed deep into my chest and I suddenly lost the gift to breathe. Fear struck as I opened my mouth and the only thing the rushed in was the bitter taste of sea. My hand clasped my throat and my other arm reached up above me trying to pull against the sky and as ridiculously as it sounded it seemed to have worked. I felt the ease of my body glide out of the water and the lurch of vile seawater from the depths of my stomach. It was only when I felt my shoulder press against something stiff that I finally learnt of my fate._

_"Tess!" Evan half yelled, his voice seeped in anxiety. I was bundled again in his arms, this time I coughed up seawater on his shirt._

_"Tess? Are you okay?" His wet palm mopped the drenched curls from my forehead. And as I coughed up the last bit of water I tasted the heavenly texture of air float against my tongue. My chest screamed for the sweet taste of air and when he heard my horrible gasps Evan squeezed me into his chest, kissed the top of my head and whispered a sorrowful apology. My feet were no longer blazed in sand and he carried me gently out of the sea._

_Evan had this thick woollen blanket in the back of his Ute that I always loved. I always remembered its rough texture because he often wrapped it around my shoulders when I felt cold. I was huddled in it then, I could feel the wool brush against my parched salt burnt lips. I huddled in the deep comfort of the passenger's seat; I know that because I could smell the beige of the acrylic on the seat._

_Thoughts became blue and I soon forgot where I was, the heaviness of sleep drew all strength from me. And just when I thought I heard the white of silence, the soft baby blue of Suzanne Vega's peaceful guitar floated through the air and Evan husky voice hummed a very familiar tune._

* * *

When you find yourself so immersed in thought it's so hard to return but the clash of an impatient dark navy blue fly screen door, roused me from my deep stream of pictures. I felt them fade away, the colours sunk into the blackberry brick and from the corner of my eye the black shadow of a scitty cat flurried away.

"Tess?" the soft mellifluous voice of Lucy was so recognisable in the heat of the morning sun. I noted the time on my watch. I had sat here an hour.

In stunned embarrassment I ruffled up the yellow in my hair and turned to face a severely inquisitive Lucy. She looked very dull today, usually there'd be something seethingly colourful about the way she dressed but today she looked very simple in her dapple reddish jumper, white shirt and faded brown trousers. It was the red in her cheeks that felt urgent. Usually her hair glowed this fantastic shade that her lively red cheeks felt unnoticed but today not even her immense green eyes sparkled like they usually did. I sort of pursed my lips when I noticed and Lucy who's mouth gaped out, had nothing to say and so she sat down next to me, pulling away the wrought iron chair yesterday's cat had hidden against and softly laid a bundle of rich yellow chrysanthemums on the table in front.

I had covered my lips with my fingertips, embarrassed slightly but amused at the same time. Lucy definitely didn't look angry and it was strange that she didn't speak. I waited for her lips to part but she looked at me bemused so I buried my fingers deep into my harsh dry hair and slumped over the table depressingly.

The thick glare of that morning's sun glittered against the green in her eyes and when I finally came to the conclusion that today would herald a chorus of silent words Lucy felt the wind tickle her stomach and her lips curved into a gracious smile. She bowed her head and spoke to the little black shadow on her knees. Yesterday's cat made herself comfortable in Lucy's warm lap. Without warning she'd leapt there and Lucy felt obliged to stroke her luscious fur, it glistened like silver silk in the morning sun. Lucy cooed to the cat when she brushed her fingers over the crown of her delicate head. The cat felt most reluctant to be pampered; instead it bore a heavy interest in the alluring sparkle of yellow on the table in front of it. With one sleek leap she flounced onto the radiant white table and found her nose embedded deep in pleasing yellow.

"Hey, just don't eat my chrysanthemums, you!" Lucy chided and the cat's tender paws twisted amongst delicate greens stalks. She made a huge mess of the flowers, a proud mess of sprawling yellow sparkle.

Lucy glided her fingertips against the poignant pink in the cat's ears. I watched it all from behind the comfortable safety of my arms behind which hid my eyes. My eyes where like scared, blue almond slithers, peeping over my worn blue jumper. Lucy noticed them sparkle and yesterday's cat stopped prodding her arm with her velvety nose. Lucy looked at me like she did when she knew that something ate away at me but because she didn't see my sticky tears crawl down my cheeks she felt somewhat curious.

"Tess?" she asked gently and I already knew she wanted an explanation.

"I'm sorry," I whispered hoarsely but you couldn't hear it, my mouth was still very much buried under my arms. Lucy touched her bottom lip with the tips of her fingers so I drew my head out from behind their meagre shelter.

"I'm sorry for not coming in." I whispered again, a little softer this time but Lucy only smiled her hidden little smile and watched the blue in my eyes tarnish with embarrassment.

"Nothing to be sorry for." Lucy whispered, just as soft as I did and her voiced floated sympathetically through the thick air. Her empathy was something I admired greatly but it annoyed me that she didn't reek of annoyance. If I were she I'd be so angry. I just wasted a good two hours of her time yet she was still able to don that fantastic smile of hers and tell me that I didn't need to apologise.

"It's just that I'm such a stickler for time..." I reasoned. I said that to assure myself, that I wasn't breaking with my sheer routine. Nothing could really change Tess, I hate change. But Lucy only shrugged. I hated it when Lucy shrugged because the light would always dance off her shoulders in this brilliant way that just made the corner of her cheeks light up and then the red would fade away. Lucy always looked so beautiful with that tinge of red smeared across her cheeks.

"Sometimes we all run away from things we fear." Lucy stated softly and she looked so earnestly at me that the seer of boiling reality grated against my stomach. I always thought myself this impalpable woman, able to impede every harsh consequence thrown at me. I rubbed the gritty material of my sleeve against my forehead. I hated being lumped together with people who feared. Tess didn't fear anything, not really. Lucy might as well have just written 'ignominy' on my forehead. But she knew, Lucy knew that as glorified an image I made of myself, it was my tenacity that flawed me. I wasn't who I thought I was.

She drummed her fingertips lightly against the white iron but it wasn't because she was impatient, in fact Lucy waited humbly for the wash of reality to seep from my stomach; she drummed her fingers because she wanted my attention and she didn't want to seem rude.

"Are you angry at me?" I asked gently. I felt like the tiniest little child sitting in front of her, I certainly twisted my fingers through my curls, it distracted the embarrassment and my eyes timidly floated up to their corner and I buried my chin into my crossed arms again. I screwed up my mouth, the awkwardness still very apparent; my teeth ran across the inside of my lip.

"No Tess." Lucy began after what felt like such a drawn out pause. "I don't get angry easily. Besides you were the only one for today." She explained. Lucy has this gorgeous way of making you feel that tiny bit better, even when you'd just made the most incredulous of mistakes.

"Tess, what do you think stopped you from coming in?" Lucy was still curious; she pulled up the thick red sleeves on her woollen jumper just so she could hide her hands in their safe expanse, where the wind couldn't bite them.

There were a hundred and fifty two reasons why I didn't want to talk to Lucy today, all of which were flagrantly pointless. The most viable of the few sane reasons I had was that Evan's imperishable figure tore away at me. I so desperately needed to forget him but every strand of me was so reluctant to do so.

I heaved such a defeated sigh that Lucy sat even straighter in that stiff chair of hers.

"I miss him so much Lucy, that everyday becomes this fierce battle." I sighed my eyes drew themselves to the floor.

"A battle?" Lucy asked that trickle of concern simmered in her voice. I looked into her eyes and they feigned vague understanding.

"I know I have to move on, forget what Evan meant to me but it's just so very hard Lucy." I felt this sudden urge to cry. It reminded me of that one fiery winter afternoon when I watched the sun fall through a haze of purple clouds. I curled up against the rough carpet on my bedroom floor, pressed my eyes shut so tight that I felt the whirl of blood pulse through my head and I wished, I prayed so wholeheartedly that when I woke up the next morning from this disgusting nightmare, Evan would be right there, curled up beside me. He'd brush away the worried curls from my forehead and ask me why my cheeks were wet. And I wouldn't have to yearn anymore because it would have all been a sorry dream, nothing more than just a flittering, sorry dream.

Lucy watched as the heavy burden of grief weighed down the murky tears pouring down my cheeks and she clasped my hand in perplexed worry. There was nothing to say for the next five minutes and silence hit a flat dull note. Even yesterday's cat heard the silence and she pat her gentle nose against my elbow with stern sympathy.

"Would you like to go for a walk Tess?" Lucy asked, my sluggish body refused. A walk with Lucy meant a series of probing questions and help me they might, it was their intrusiveness that bugged me, the way they could draw out this pathetic emotional Tess. But Lucy's palm felt so warm clasped against my fingertips and her smile was just so radiant. I peered innocently from behind my arms.

"I have something I want to show you Tess." Lucy whispered again, her sympathy sparkled in her cheeks. I lifted myself of that heavy white chair and followed Lucy slowly down her large paved steps. I stopped at the last bright yellow one and my fingers tore up to my lips.

"But do you promise not to ask any questions?" I asked a glaze of timidness flashed across my face. Lucy fixed her float away hair behind her ear.

"I'll just listen." Lucy smiled and she walked me to the gate. The feel of soft satin brushed against my leg and when I peered down to the floor I realised that our little friend had followed us down the path. Much to Lucy's dismay she had a glowing yellow chrysanthemum stuck between her teeth. Lucy's eyes grew hot and she raced back up the careful yellow steps and bundled the last of her immaculate yellow flowers into her hand.

We walked across the street ever so slowly and without Lucy's questions there only rang the sweet sound of white silence. If it wasn't for Lucy's immense presence I could have forgotten she was even there. Lucy's vitality reminded me of Evan's and when I walked down the flower ridden streets of Mount Thomas another perfect blue picture came to mind, something to quash the longevity of time...

* * *

_"What's so interesting about that big blue sky of yours Tess?" Evan asked while I took the moment to rearrange my palms plastered against the back of my head. The blood rushed to my right palm and my left palmed swelled, frustrated with patience I rest my head up against Evan's shoulder and tucked my legs underneath me up onto that horrible green of that wooden park bench. Evan was a little surprised; I was never really affectionate toward him because I didn't know how to be. But it was the little things, I reasoned; if I smiled when he said something stupid or held him when he felt dismal he'd know that I really did care, just like I wanted to. Evan was always content with me leaning my head against his shoulder, it 'killed him' when I did it because he knew that it took me so long to get to the point where'd I'd just sit there and lean my head against his shoulder, just like that, for no reason whatsoever. With Tess there was always reason and he knew that, so he relished it, relished every precious little moment he had with me as if it were something sacred._

_ He draped his arm around my shoulders ever so gingerly, just in case I'd flinch but nothing could tear me away from my illustrious sky, there was just something so gorgeously captivating about that blue dome of emptiness. It's silly to think that people once yearned to explore it, as if it were some strange foreign country but in saying that there's something mystical about that patch of blue, it's always so gloriously alluring._

_"Tess?" Evan asked again. There was this loveliness in his voice when he felt close; maybe it was because I could feel the deep rattle of its pitch in his cheeks. His voice always had a nice kind of tune, I had never heard him sing before but I imagined that he well could, if he really wanted to. It felt so comfortable, gregarious and warm over the telephone whenever he rang and it wouldn't matter where I was or how far away he was, he would always sound so close and genuine._

_"Tessy? Are you asleep?" He brushed his warm palm over my twisting curls and it was true, I had closed my eyes for a moment and I immersed myself in the big watery blue pictures of my stagnant imagination but he tore me away from that._

_"No, not asleep. Just thinking." I readjusted my head against his shoulder and I opened my eyes against that big glare of green that was that pocket of bush in the middle of the park._

_"What of?" Evan was curious and while I sneaked my arm around his neck I hinted up at the sky where a recent flock of very dainty birds flew past with such poise and ease that you thought they'd never get tired._

_"Them..." I stated blankly, "...and how they just fly like that." Evan sort of readjusted his weight on the bench and he pushed me back very awkwardly against the arm of the strong wooden bench._

_Evan looked very strange, his eyes had sharp lines of curiosity run against them and his lip twisted into that bemused curious smile that he was well renowned for. He furrowed his brow for a minute and licked the bitter dry skin on his parched lips._

_"Don't you know how birds fly Tess?" I was still fixated with the sky and had this very reluctant urge not to glare away._

_"No" I mumbled hastily and then danced my eyes across the sky once more. "I was never much good at physics." I reasoned and somehow in that aching pit of my stomach I knew that Evan would somehow stumbled across some ridiculous pearl of wisdom in that expansive brain of his. I always enjoyed though, having someone to talk things through with, nothing of significant importance just little things like why George Orwell had his 'Animal Farm' or why grass was green and the sky wasn't or why there was a Great Depression in the nineteen twenties and Evan knew all that. I'd just have to ask._

_"Well I'll give you a crash course." Evan smiled; the eagerness to explain was so evident in his invading smile that I'd have to submit. I was sort of curious in a small kind of way._

_Evan sat up very straight with this very well planned expression smeared across his forehead, very well accustomed. You knew that when he did that he was going to explain something very complex and important and so I sat up very straight and closely followed the intense excitement in his eyes. But before he spoke he lightly brushed the tips of my knuckles with his fingertips. I thought for a moment that he would feel some need to hold my hand but he simply caught my gaze again and then folded his two hands into a butterfly, with his two palms held out flat, palms down and facing me with his thumbs intertwined together. He flapped his palms up and down as a sort of joking gesture and it caught a smile on my lips._

_"Could you do that for me?" he asked and he flapped his butterfly hands toward me, too amused with his own little creation. Once I did he pointed to my two thumbs._

_"Pretend that's a bird and that's its head okay?" Evan asked and I nodded softly and followed along with his intriguing explanation. "And that's the front view of the bird with the front view of its wings." Evan dragged the tip of his finger against the length of my index fingers._

_"Now let's take one wing." He broke apart my complex fleshy bird and now held one palm out and Evan twisted it so that my fingers pointed out in front of me and my thumb pointed out to the right. He tucked my thumb away though, it was seemingly useless._

_"Now remember how that's the front of your wing?" Evan stroked the length of my index finger again and I nodded just as astutely._

_"See the way it's shaped? It's like an arch." Evan ran the tip of his finger from my knuckle down to the soft skin on my palm on that cylindric wad of palm that was feigning a wing._

_"The bottom of the wing is more flat with just a little curve on the side..." Evan drew his finger across the bottom of my palm, "and the top of the wing is more curved." Evan now drew imaginary lines across my knuckles._

_"When the wind hits the wing it goes in two paths. Across the curved surface of the top which means that it travels a greater distance because it's more curved or across the bottom that's relatively flat and a shorter distance." Evan stopped running his finger down the base of my palm and looked up into my eyes just to see if I had kept up with the explanation but I was intrigued, I never knew how simple yet so stunningly complex it really was and as I sat I sort of admired Evan and his great field of knowledge and wished that I had really spent more time with him, just to sit and listen._

_"When the wind travels across the top of the wing it travels further and across the bottom it travels less. So for both streams of air to get at the end of the wing at the same time- imagine that the back of you hand is a sharp point- the wind on the top has to travel faster than the wind at the bottom. You got that so far?" Evan always made sure that I understood him and as a faint sparkle in my eyes grew I nodded earnestly and let him continue._

_"Fast wind creates low pressure, slow wind creates high pressure. Low pressure on the top of your wing..." Evan pointed directly on my first knuckle, "...and high pressure on the bottom of the wing." Evan skimmed his finger down to my palm. "The difference in pressure creates lift that-"_

_"That lifts the wing up into the air!" I smiled and cheekily rubbed the curls in my fringe against my forehead and while Evan's smile reigned across his cheeks. He sat back against the wooden pails in the stiff bench and instead of slinking his arm loosely across my shoulders he still held onto my hand, that warm half rough skin of his palm brushed affectionately against mine and felt so convincingly comfortable that I laced my fingers through his._

_I let my eyes scan the horizon again and I watched the white wind run against the curved surfaces of a sneaky magpie's wings and I felt so privy to his secret now that it almost felt childish. Suddenly it flapped its massive display of zebra feathers, just suddenly like that and you could almost see the burden of the weight of air. I pointed shockingly at the magpie who'd just pushed himself further into that expanse of sky._

_"See that!" I pointed out. "It flapped! Why did it flap its wings Evan, if all the high tech. engineering it needs it right there in its wings?" suddenly this perfected image of flight started to yellow in the corners. Evan just smiled and knew that he had an answer, he always did._

_"Planes have runways and wheels and big, huge engines that let them speed across the run way and slowly lift up into the air. Have you ever seen how fast a magpie runs Tess?" Evan asked that glorious grin shot against his face. I had given in._

_"Yes" I sighed and felt the tickle of humility against my stomach._

_"But it's not just that Tess. Planes aren't able to lift off right off from where they stand. They need this huge run up, which is why the have those massive runways but birds don't need that, they can flap their wings with so much force that it'll lift them up into the air immediately. It's the shape of their wing that holds them up there and enables them to fly." Evan finished his little explanation with a tender and smile and he too sat back gently and watched the thick blue of the sky fade into his eyes with that radiant glow that it mastered. I too became content and while that warm peace lasted I once again found that warm comfortable spot on Evan's sturdy shoulder just where my forehead pressed against his chin. When I found the warmth to close my eyes Evan felt the need to speak again._

_"So Tess, what's with the fascination with the sky and flight and all that?" he asked curiously and if he understood its significance than he wouldn't have asked._

_"I like its escape." I muttered not dismally but in a more depressed sort of voice that Evan immediately picked up on. Evan untwined his fingers from mine and with a surprising sort of touch he enveloped me in his arms, placing a warm sort of kiss on my forehead, as he did so often._

_"Oh Tess, what is it about this world that you dread so much, hey?" Evan asked but I wouldn't answer, I just gazed up to that luscious blue dome that filled that gaping hole in the sky and envied the birds that floated through it. I'd give anything for that kind of escape._

* * *

We came to an enormous green hill with a very obscure sort of crater. If you weren't careful enough you'd have thought that the sun had fallen in and made this large pit of a hole on this very stretch of peaceful green. But you couldn't call it a hole, it wasn't that eerie. Along the front of this hill lay a patched brick wall, steel gates as its arms with orange-coated rust. I knew too well of a place very similar, a very deprived, lonely place on a smaller golden hill not too very far away. For a very lonely little place it was so densely populated with large stone and glistening marble tablets and this enormous blanket of frightening white wooden crosses. The white paint would sometimes peel away when the crows pecked at them. You'd often see these little black creatures perched on the arms of many a white wooden cross. They were the only regular visitors but because they tarnished that peaceful blanket of white, they weren't very welcome at all.

Lucy felt very comfortable approaching the solemn red brick wall, I stood well away. A place like this was too fragile for me. The walls felt like they could almost collapse under their own sheer weight and the ground hissed with this sort of stilted noise, buried deep in the green of the grass.

When Lucy noticed that vague glitter of uneasiness that I hid deep in my chest she reached out to hold my hand and slowly she lead me toward that body of brick and stopped me just before the iron clutches of a very stern black gate.

"I remember that told you me that I didn't understand..." Lucy began but she didn't look at me as she spoke. Instead her hand gripped the smooth black pillar of iron. Lucy shuffled her feet in the grass. "But there is something I do understand and I want to show it to you." With a very light push to the harsh pillar in her hand Lucy pried open the gate into a yard of grave marble figures, all in very structured and measured positions, all facing the wide face of the sun that glowed so happily on their surfaces.

I felt so reluctant to move into this almost uniformed yard but Lucy had such a convincing sort of demeanour that it almost crushed me not to oblige so I follow her, she searched very carefully through rows and rows of black marbled tablets. She searched but she knew very well where she was going.

The only colour in this very destitute field was the green under our feet. I expected this lively splatter of colour against the bases of these dark, lonely stone panels but everyone had forgotten them. That's what we do with the dead. We forget them.

I thought so very coldly of Evan's grave and whether there was any colour there but I couldn't remember what it looked like, I didn't like seeing it.

Lucy led through rows and rows and rows of black stone until she came upon the very last little grave, tucked away in the very tight corner of the back wall. It sat very humbly, pressed against the brick wall for all its support and strength. On its front glistened very deeply carved stone letters, filled in with some sort of twinkling gold paint that ran sparkling gold lines along its text.

'BRIAN FITZPATRICK', read the hue of gold, its stark bold letters lit up a glowing fire on the deep black marble. Under the name there was nothing but two dates, 1954 and 2004 and a bludging golden swirl of thick Latin text, "Requiescat In Pace". It possessed such dignity and decent simplicity that was admirable.

Lucy patted the tip of the black arch with soft nostalgia. She ran her fingers along the radiant gold text and along the smooth poignant stone and she sat so daintily on the lush blanket of green grass. She drew up from within herself this horribly composed figure and stiffly crossed her sleek legs against the grass. Her glittering bunch of crisp chrysanthemums tumbled in the tiny little breeze that pushed them against the wall of their simple steel cup but they sat so proudly at that base at the base of their grave and they glittered so gloriously in their reverent sun that they made this whole valley of stone glimmer in delight.

I hadn't found anything useful to do with myself. I hadn't opened my mouth since I entered this place, for the sheer semblance that it emitted simply scared me. Lucy had almost forgotten me there on that blanket of green. The wind swept lightly through her hair, the gold cascaded in deep lines along the stone and the horrible hiss of the ground sated itself with quiet.

I searched for that flagrant hint of loss and despair that this place should have possessed. I searched so hard for it amongst the beige rotten flowers and the dirty forgotten names but I couldn't find it. This place felt nothing like where Evan was because it looked so peaceful and dignified. Even those that were long forgotten still had the sun blaze against their stone pillars ever afternoon and wonderful lush green at their foot. Evan had none of that.

I was consumed with the peace of the grass when I sat down next to Lucy. I crossed over my sleek legs just like she had done and I twirled the thin threads of sticky grass through my fingers just like she and when Lucy was finally confident that I noticed the vivid comfort of this place she spoke.

" I wanted you to see that I do understand what it feels like Tess. I know how it feels to be ripped apart into little shreds. I know what it feels like to have this constant pain in the very pit of your stomach that makes it so very hard to swallow..." Lucy tapered off with an unfinished sort of whisper, "I know that hollow sort of darkness that you wake up to in the morning Tess. I've felt that all." Lucy heaved a very burdened sigh and her eyes sparkled a very familiar colour. Almost instantly I noticed what it was, it was that same kind of spiteful yellow that spiked through her eyes when she looked so retired and hopeless. I gained quick knowledge of Lucy's little secret, that little secret that she hid in the dark recesses of her mind only a day or two ago.

My fingers touched the very dry tips of my red stained lips. "Is that your husband?" I asked Lucy softly and as Lucy jolted at my sudden gain of words, I saw this little trickle of a path that a very small tear carved into Lucy's cheek and that she so very subtly wiped away.

Lucy didn't have to answer my question, I already knew its answer but she felt very obliged to give a small nod, just as confirmation.

"Thirty years is a very long time to be in love" Lucy whispered, very softly to that stark black marble as she gazed very loving at her husband's name, just the hint of gold in the bold text of his name sparked a warm sort of glow in the deep corners of Lucy's heart. It was the same sort of slow glow as the glistening gold of her simple golden wedding ring.

"I can't possibly put myself in your shoes Tess but I want you to know that I do understand you, even if it is just a little tiny bit." Lucy smiled and with that incredibly fond smile of hers she brushed away a very stray lock of hair and let the sun eat up the tears on her face.

Lucy promised no questions, only to listen but as I sat here with her amongst the peace and seemingly complex vitality of stone I wanted her to ask me her probing questions, right now I wanted her to delve so deep into the heart of me that I would hurt all over again because I wanted that dark hollow to go away, that dark hollow that Lucy knew of.

"Tell me about him Lucy" I asked, that faint shift of role reversal was so unsubtle to be pointed to. Lucy was a little struck with my question, maybe she too had not only buried away that man whom she loved but buried away his memory so that it wouldn't plague her. She pulled away her curling fringe of carrot orange hair and gazed up to me, her comrade in loss and despair and gave me a very brief but genuine smile.

"There's so much to tell" Lucy gasped as she held back tears. "And I'm here to listen to you Tess, I fear that if I start now, we'll sit into the long hours of the night." It was only then that I sort of understood that maybe some questions aren't so appropriate to ask.

"I'm sorry" I whispered and hung my head in appropriate shame but the delicate chuckle in Lucy's voice hindered that and she touched my shoulder weakly.

"I'll tell you one thing. As much as I told myself that it would be easier to forget Brian and start over again, just like you Tess, it didn't work. The more I fought the more it hurt and the more I pleaded with myself to part with his memory the more strongly I clutched onto it." Lucy's grip on my shoulder became a little tighter as if to highlight a very significant point. I could not forget Evan and I shouldn't force myself to do so but there was this residual feeling that what Lucy shared with her husband was something of greater power, what I had with Evan simply couldn't compare, it didn't follow the same rules.

"But he was your husband, you loved him for thirty years…" I started and Lucy shook her head confidently.

"And our love was more profound then what you shared with Evan, Tess?" Lucy asked even though I told her that I didn't want any questions. I nodded, the eternal bond that a married couple share is just so picturesque and profoundly beautiful, it's very deep and so very different to every other kind of relationship. Lucy shook her head once more.

"If you let yourself love Evan the way you wanted to, if you didn't have that shameful past that thwart your every decision I have no doubt that you and Evan would have been very happily married. But because of your situation and even through it, you still loved Evan as if you were married to him, despite the lack of rings and vows and commitment. Don't ever degrade what you felt for Evan, Tess, don't ever dismiss it and don't ever conjure up some false meaning of it Tess, especially because it was so very genuine." Genuine. There's a word I had never heard anyone speak of me before. Genuine, it was the best way to describe that feeling I felt for him. It wasn't tarnish with some unforgivable sense of forgery; it was real. I sighed heavily in to the very depth of my chest; I wish Evan knew how real it felt.

"Lucy?" I asked, she'd busied herself with her husband's stone tablet; even though it only really represented symbolically his resting place to Lucy it meant more. She traced in to the graven gold letters as if they were something very precious, the letters of his name like sparkling, sun tickled honey.

Lucy looked up and it was no secret that she was keeping a deluge of tears at bay, you could see them bulge under her eyeballs like strained dam water and she feared to smile for the upheaval of emotion would send her crazy.

"Yes Tess?" she finally answered, her smile fought and plain. I fumbled with a tawny blade of grass in my fingers, the sticky sap of nature stuck to my skin.

"I need to tell you about the investigation, I need someone to listen." I explained and it needed no answer from Lucy for Lucy had this very abstract language of gestures that was more straightforward than a string of words. When her eyes twinkled appreciatively I knew she was already listening, just as she promised.

"We all found ourselves at the station…"

* * *

_It was a very weak and dim day. You could just see it through the blinds in the kitchenette. It was very dark and ugly, the clouds had just been dropped in a huge can of black paint and they were hanging in the sky to dry, dripping their muck of gray all over that vast sphere. Fitting I suppose, particularly for the mood we all seemed to possess in our little country ridden station. _

_It took one look at our faces to see that we were too exhausted, too lost and too unsympathetic to be spoken to. Ben slouched at his chair, his head not quite in his hands but hanging over a coffee mug laced with whatever tasteless liquor he had left in his cupboard. P.J. had shut the door to his office and asked specifically not to be disturbed for the day, 'filing' he mumbled, 'hadn't been done for over a year and now was a more convenient time then ever', so he said. The Boss looked very anxious in his office, one set of blinds drawn and the other open just far enough that you could see lines of his coloured face through the window. He sat wistfully at his desk too, drumming his fingers on its edge thinking adequately about our present situation and how it just sunk up on us so very quickly, without sufficient warning. Jo was the worst though, she had tried to keep some semblance of normality within the station walls but she only succeeded in mumbling chaotically to herself and shuffling about reports as if they were finished and she needed to clear her desk of space. Every now and then she would mumble that 'we needed to do something' or that 'we couldn't just sit here and mope' but stricken with intangible grief she only mumbled to keep sane._

_I would have had to have been the only one to answer phones. In the thick dead of silence they rang like the ominous clang of hospital alarms, urgent and ear piercing. Even still as I drearily repeated my rank into the phone and asked if there was anything I could possibly help with, I sank with a heavy sort of numbness in my chair. Even though two men had been assaulted, a flock of sheep stolen and a motor accident victim severely injured the copper in me could care less. _I_ could care less._

_We were all specifically told by the Inspector that none of us could touch the case until Homicide arrived and even then our involvement was to be limited to the point that allowed us to be objective. Jo could have spat in the Inspector's face but her reluctance to further hinder the case saved her the daring act, personally I wished she did. _

_The monotony of waiting took its toll on everyone, the moment the sanity of duty ran cold we all collapsed into a thick reverie of loss. We all glared at his desk every now and then expecting to hear the shuffle of swivel chair wheels and his usually husky voice telling us we'd forgotten to look over a very inconspicuous suspect. Jo took the silence very harshly and the gaping empty space not far from her side felt so cold and empty that she had to sling her jacket over her shoulders._

"_I miss him Tess," she whispered across to me every now and then and I did my very best not to fall apart in front of her and cry. We all missed him; each to certain degrees but the very same kind of hurt tore across our chests. Jo missed her trusty partner in crime, P.J. his budding junior detective, the Boss his never failing larrikin, Ben his uncertain companion and I missed my hero and we all waited for that redeeming clang of the fly screen door at our entrance, the signal that we could all finally avenge his murder._

_It came quite abruptly once Jo had cleared her desk. We all shot a look at the front counter, something we had ignored for a long while and even the Boss had the vigour to rise from his desk to enquire about our visitors but unfortunately it wasn't who we expected it to be. With the clear thud of his briefcase on our counter and a gruff, unyielding sigh the man mumbled a soft 'hello', grief stinging his normally pleasant voice._

"_Dylan!" I rose from my chair as soon as I saw his face. He didn't possess that same gruff charm that his brother once did but all the same the sight of him made an innocuous sense of comfort overcome me. _

"_Dylan, I'm so very sorry…" I mumbled before I was too overcome by tears to speak, I stood before Dylan ashamed and broken but he reached out for me and held me in a light hug. He pushed me back to clasp my shoulders gently, that same stern look of sincerity that seemed to be hereditary in the Jones family._

"_Dad said that if you ever need anything…" Dylan's eyes flashed about empathetically and he waited for me to finish the cliché of a sentence._

"_I know where to go. I know, thanks Dylan." My voice to hoarse of a whisper to be heard properly so I pat Dylan's shoulder gratefully, his show of solidarity was most compelling._

"_I do mean that Tess, anything…" Dylan whispered back and gave me a little smile and his palms slid of my shoulders. From the comfort of Dylan I came in to Jo's arms, she squeezed my shoulder empathetically from behind, reminding me that I need not carry this burden alone._

_We all congregated at the mere wooden bench not very surprised at Dylan's appearance more so relieved, relieved that we might just be able to progress further with this case and that we all has someone to share our pain with._

"_Jones?" came a heavy voice from just behind a thick wooden door. We all shuddered at the mention of his name. 'Jones' only ever felt reserved for one member of the Jones family and it seemed out of place to mention it otherwise. The Boss made haste his apology and addressed him formally._

"_Sergeant Dylan Jones?" the Boss asked again, quite perplexed. Dylan's arrival hadn't been intended but from the Boss' tone of voice his arrival wasn't welcomed either. _

"_What are you doing here Dylan?" The Boss asked once again, only in a tone that a disheartened boss possessed. Dylan found the handle of his briefcase on the bench in front of him and squeezed hard in his tight grip, his eyes flared with an intense glaze of pure determination._

"_I'm here to sort out this mess." He stated confidently and as the Boss acknowledged his answer with a nod Jo motioned the well-dressed detective into our little abode behind the thick wooden bench where he was solemnly consoled for the…_

* * *

The intense shrill of Pachelbel's Cannon rose up through the light coloured air amidst us. Lucy's eyes widened as I stopped to investigate the noise.

"I'm so sorry Tess. I really should learn how to turn things off!" Lucy chuckled and as she rummaged in her back pocket for her plastic jacketed brick phone. Once retrieved, she held the phone in a foreign kind of way clasped in two hands. She felt it necessary to press that eager red button on its body.

"Oh no, please answer it Lucy. It's my fault you're here…" I blubbered to her as quick as I possibly could before her hold on that phone relinquished. Lucy nodded graciously and instead she pressed the green button and delicately stated her name.

"Lucy Fitz…Jamie!" Lucy rolled her eyes at me mockingly and a bright sort of smile illuminated across her face. "Where am I?" she spoke into the phone. "I'm just visiting Dad but I'm with a patient so you better tell me what the matter is before I find myself rude enough to hang up." Lucy teased and she bit her lip cheekily to the reaction of her son's voice. "You're _what_!" Lucy exclaimed and her tranquil demeanour drained off her face like an oncoming storm. "Are you hurt?" she asked, the brutal shock clanged in her motherly voice. A sigh of relief washed over her face and I let go of the tight grip my teeth had on my lip. "There's nothing there that the R.A.C.V. can't fix? Oh, right I see…well I get to you as soon as I can. And Jamie, please just be careful next time, actually don't even make sure there's a next time! Alright? Okay, I love you sweet heart…'bye." Lucy pressed that red button down with about as much fervency that you'd address a fire alarm with.

"I'm sorry about that Tess." Lucy apologised sincerely but I smiled gently, the short-lived anxiety still drawn on my face.

"Oh don't you worry now Tess. He's fine." Lucy smiled and couldn't help but notice how attuned she was to my emotions.

"What happened?" I asked and Lucy chuckled with a gentle sort of mockery.

"My intelligible son just had a close encounter with a speeding gum tree." Lucy smiled and she noticed the harsh alarm in my cheeks. "Oh no, Tess, truly he's fine. He backed into it you see, in my husband's classic Mercedes. He swears that it wasn't there last time he looked but he's in for it, that was his father's 'pride and joy'." Lucy said with a very false sense of rebuke. Lucy wasn't very materialistic and the news that her son was still breathing drew a thick smile across her cheeks.

"This must mean you're leaving then." I half-smiled, although Lucy was needed urgently elsewhere the thought that she would leave me here on my own was disheartening, I almost needed her here.

"I am sorry Tess but I must pick Jamie up." Lucy stated but the strained smile that I possessed weakened her a little. "I'll tell you what, first thing tomorrow morning you meet me on my porch and we can have the whole day. I'll treat you to some of my short bread biscuits, I make mean short bread." Lucy giggled as she lifted her slender body off the healthy green grass.

"You won't be too busy with the car?" I asked softly, secretly hoping that Lucy would have all the time in the world for me and she shook her head insistently, just as I had hoped.

"Jamie's car, Jamie's insurance company. I'll see you tomorrow oh and I hope you're feeling well today- I forgot to ask." Lucy chuckled and a stream of very confident wind blew her hair about like a flaming orange crown and I waved her off down the path and she floated off in to the distance of hazy green and shimmering bright blue.


	7. Chapter 7

It's been a while. I should apologise, I've had a busy month or many with exams and such. But I've finally put pen to paper almost effortlessly. I've had a really hard time with this chapter as I don't really know which way this fic is headed at the moment. Enjoy it if you will, it's a little different.

Sarah made a very good comment about being concise and being succinct is a fantastic skill to have, especially in physics. And funnily enough I'm incredibly concise normally, as hard as it is for me to be so. This is the only place I can get away with writing utter nonsense and not feeling bad about it. So forgive me if it kills you, I'm no writer really, I just describe thing. But I have taken Sarah's comment into consideration, my next fic is fairly succinct, just for you.

Oh and the lyrics they are Suzanne Vega's again, I probably shouldn't be stealing those too.

Just to let you know Moran and Cato aren't real, well they were. They were the names of two cousins I believe that set up a well known Australian supermarket chain. But they're meant to be some superhero figure in this fic. I just like their names.

_This one's for Ella too. 'Happy Birthday Ella!'_

**Chapter Seven**

_"I've swallowed a secret burning thread  
It cuts me inside, and often I've bled"_

Shortbread always had a very familiar feeling. It felt like a tight knot in the base of my stomach and a burning cold down my throat. Lucy had left her searing hot wafer thin crumble biscuits on the peeling white paint of her window sill and I could smell the trail they permeated through the thick heat of this spring morning.

Crawling up Lucy's idyllic street, all its colours melted together like they do in a dream. All pastel like and vibrant and almost nauseatingly vivacious. You could tell it was a Saturday, they have that kind of distinguishing glaze.

It was a glaze I usually find myself lost in. Noise simply filters through my head in very thin, sharp white lines making a very soft droning noise. I could passively watch a whole day go past without the slightest disturbance to the eerie haze. Except maybe today.

"Boo!" A man sat precariously on the sudden top of Lucy's neighbour's red brick mailbox. Almost childlike in fashion with his legs crossed over unskilfully so that his brilliant brown leather shoes stuck out to balance him. He was impeccably dressed but terribly misplaced. His suit, a militant, heavy brown; tailored just to fit, lined, cut perfectly and it sat on his shoulders the way something incredibly expensive does. It didn't suit him though and he knew it. His vibrant white shirt was crumpled at the collar and unbuttoned a little because he had torn off his tie, its tongue stuck out, cheekily, from outside his blazer pocket.

I stood very still, somehow his outburst didn't reach any sort of conscious thought and so it didn't frighten me. The man pulled a sly face of intrigue and promptly began to wave his palm in front of my face.

"Hello?" His voice felt very dim and distant so I chose to ignore it but my forehead furrowed with the kind of complexity that shows that you're unaware of the situation you're currently present in.

"Do you think she's a zombie?" Came a very suspicious sweet little voice, riddled with the harsh grain of youth. A pool of matt golden brown hair poked just above the head of the letter box and its glitter finally woke me from my trance.

"A what? Sorry?" I rubbed the worry off my forehead and focused my eyes to see the man talk to vacant air, this time oblivious to my presence.

"She could be. Zombies have been known to be ultracrepidarian."

"What!" I exclaimed, feeling a little dejected from the innuendo.

The man hopped off the letterbox with a very childlike ease. And the little minion scurried just beside him in her lurid, picturesque red dress.

He opened the fragile white gate that led into Lucy's flamboyant flower garden and at precisely the same time led me by the arm through it.

"Ultracrepidarian means someone who feigns knowledge but in reality they're kind of stupid." He explained and unsteadily caught grasp of one of my ignorantly insulted smiles. I peered up into his face, doused in the most garish yellow aura that the sun could provide, and it felt so piercingly familiar. So fresh and gently carved. Same sleek nose, pale washed out face with just the tiniest bit of sun in his cheeks and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose. Rough, difficult kind of lips but the same very vibrant red and the most startling yellow-green eyes. Like golden marble, they glittered so heavily in the light. But it was his smile that struck the most ultimate affinity. It lit up his face like a shattering crash of a wave and the glitter in his eyes made him so elusively affable. There was something so outwardly gorgeous about him. It intrigued me.

"Ah, manners." he scrunched his nose awkwardly. "Sorry, it's big of me to think that no one knows me. I'm Jamie." He held out his hand abruptly in front of mine, the largest of his most alluring smiles plastered on his face. I chuckled to myself, the mystery of his identity solved as I pictured Lucy's warm face against his.

"You're-?" I meant to ask, just to confirm the fact but he cut me off with a very hurried nod.

"'Fraid so," he laughed brushing his hand back through his harsh, very dark hair. "And you're?"

"Wait!" Squealed the frail little voice beside him. And she tugged on the corner of his blazer. He made a face of stunted shock and no sooner swept the little girl into his arms.

"I can't forget the minion!" He chuckled.

"I'm Louise" the little girl smiled secretly in a way that made her soft jade eyes wink. "What's your name?" She tilted her head softly in inquiry.

"Gal-sorry, Tess" I replied, dishevelled and a little mixed up with embarrassment. I finally took Jamie's hand and gave it a firm shake. And to Louise I gave a soft and confident smile, a smile she seemed to like to part with. Louise started to squirm in Jamie's arm and he let her go to run off against the wind and dissolve into the sky. Jamie stood a little rigid, we had only made two steps from the entrance.

" You're a cop. Is there something wrong with Mum?" He asked digging his hands into his pockets like heavy weights. And as I tucked a little bit of hair behind my ears I shook my head most gruffly and turned my eyes away.

"Ah no, quite the opposite in fact..." the wind trailed away my meagre voice as Jamie's leather shoes twisted expensively against the yellow brick paving.

"Oh, you're one of Mum's. Right..." Jamie unexpectedly took my hand at this point and led me up the short path to the porch. Although it wasn't meant to, Lucy's porch always felt so very distant. But despite the open emptiness Jamie had found one of Lucy's iron chair and flopped into it like an artist would. He rested one of his legs against the other in a big triangle, revealing his mismatched bright red and blue socks in his coarse leather shoes. Jamie looked up at me a little concerned.

"Sit" he patted the heavy steel chair aside from him. "Mum won't be out for a while. She's a lost cause for hidden objects, they seemed to keep eluding her." He closed his eyes and let the cool breeze eat up his face.

"What's...?"

"The teapot" Jamie didn't let me finish my sentence. An alarming streak of resemblance ran through Jamie. Like his mother he had an intuitive zest for others.

Jamie felt sincere enough for me to slip into the hard steel chair and prop myself up with my elbow on the table face. He sat amusingly enough with his arms back up against his head, oblivious to the fact that he looked incredibly ridiculous. But there was something that little bit vivid about him; he was a very insightful kind, particularly insightful. How did he know I was a cop? I didn't tell him and obviously Lucy's confidentially agreement was more than just a signed piece of paper. I looked at him, harsh lines of leaf-green smeared across his face. He caught me watching and smiled, embarrassed.

"Something on my face?" He asked brushing his chin automatically. I shied away embarrassed, the red growing vehement on my cheeks.

"Oh, no. There's just something I wanted to ask..." I explained my vulgarly thin arms crossed themselves shyly as I hunched my shoulders childishly.

"Mmm?" The sun caught a twinkle in his eye.

"How did you know I was a cop?" I asked and in hearing that question he sat up more astutely, businessman like, attributing the sort of persona the suit labelled him with.

"Well Tess. It's the bane of being the son of a psychologist. You pick up on things that everyone else dismisses. Like the way people walk. You walk like a cop. I saw it. Oh and you started with your surname, that was a big hint." He explained quite flagrantly.

I gave an impressed sort of shrug. Force of habit, I was always Gallagher more than I was ever Tess to most people. But Jamie's hint at my demeanour was more interesting. I furrowed my eyebrows in that deeply perplexed way.

"Walk like a cop?" I asked. And he nodded as he shifted himself to stand up in front of me.

"Yeah you know...feet turned out, stiff rigid sort of frame with hands either in your pockets sort of angular and you walk really forcefully as if you're constantly agitated. You all do that you see. It must be a power play thing." Jamie mimicked an exaggerated officer and he paced superiorly over to the other side of the porch and back again, almost exhausted with the sheer strength of the task. His face drew on a very staid impassiveness but only momentarily before his smile grew over his facade like mould.

"Ah, I'd never make a good cop, too insipid a place for me, too rigid." Jamie mentioned before he shook himself of the brusqueness that was so often found in the force. I raised my eyebrows at the insipid comment but he was right in a sense. Insipid felt like it was painted on the wall in the station now. That's what it felt like before Evan and ultimately without him.

"They say you can tell a lot about a person by the way they walk." Jamie professed intelligently while he leaned himself against the wall of Lucy's little cottage. I imagined that he looked just like he had just walked off the set of a 1950s U.S. anti-Communist propaganda movie, a well lit cigarette tucked cheekily in the corner of his mouth with a short brimmed felt homburg, stealthily covering his eyes.

"They also say that a perceptive man is one to be feared." Came the subtle voice of Lucy from her open door down the porch. It took us both by surprise. Lucy had found her soft blue teapot and managed to whisk away the biscuits off the windowsill and she carried them steadily toward us both.

"Oh hello Tess. It was hiding!" Lucy held up the obviously burdening teapot, the one with the little delicate ball handled lid. Jamie smirked at Lucy's tiresome effort to find the teapot and slinked away behind her, the cunning character he was. He slinked his hand onto the biscuit tray she still held and gently picked up a crumbling biscuit just loudly enough for Lucy to notice.

"Uh! Unleash the biscuit Jamie! They're not for you..." Jamie rolled his eyes at his mother's obvious authority over him and let the biscuit drop ruthlessly onto the tin and break in half.

"You never make me biscuits!" he pouted mockingly and Lucy rubbed her forehead in defeat, her son's cheekiness spurring a gentle smile across my face.

"Shoo! Go on! Make yourself useful! Paint's in the shed." Lucy waved her son on through the flyscreen door with the faintest picture of distaste on his face. But the firm clash of a biscuit on the table signalled that Lucy had caught sight of something in the distance.

"Jamie." Lucy's voice was stilted and urgent and it caught Jamie suddenly off guard. "Amae's here."

Jamie whipped himself out of the chair violently and almost tumbled down the staid stairs but Lucy caught the arm of her unsteady son and with a tranquilising look of certainty Lucy managed to coax her son back into his chair upon which he fell lifelessly.

"I'll go Jamie." Lucy announced sternly and with a hint of regret she softly pat my shoulder and whispered an embarrassed kind of "Sorry".

Jamie cowered away in the chair almost like a twelve year old boy. Legs pulled up on the seat and hugged tightly to his chest, he rested his chin on them poignantly and his eyes fixed watched the dark haired woman sweeping in through the garden.

"She's very beautiful" I remarked but this time it was Jamie's turn to enter a significantly paralysing trance. Amae was beautiful though. She was perfectly business like in her sleek cut black flowing pants and a fitted pin striped jacket. Amae emanated sharp angular lines and they complimented her otherwise emaciated body. Her sharp thick cut fringe nearly covered her eyebrows but did almost nothing to shelter her savagely penetrating brown eyes. And she had the most envied over hair. It was cut so accurately that it sat just touching her shoulders, no single strand was disjointed or out of place. Her fiercely dark black hair paled away most of her face except her lips that felt indifferently colourful against her cheeks. Although entrancing, Amae felt unnatural almost stoic. Only until she saw her effervescent daughter run to her with open arms that she unmasked her brilliant smile. The scene felt a little mute as I assured myself that I wouldn't eavesdrop. Jamie felt it his obligation to do so but soon caught me glaring awestricken at his loneliness. His legs collapsed beneath him.

"I suppose you want to know. It's only human nature to want to know something." Jamie chuckled poignantly to himself. "That says much of secrets." The contrast between this Jamie and the Jamie I had met only previously was so stark that it only affirmed my belief that this was a severely emotional man. Someone who rides the ultimate highs of life but crashes in its inevitable falls.

I half shuffled in my seat, not to well aware of how I should respond to Jamie's comment. I didn't quite understand whether it was meant for me or him or whether it meant anything at all.

"You see, she isn't mine. Not technically." Jamie motioned to the little girl who'd weaved her arms around her mother's neck tightly. And then he looked at me, securing my confidence.

"Louise?" I asked for assurance and Jamie simply nodded meekly that elusive half smile of dejection perused across his lips.

"But she was raised by me. You'd think that would count for something." Jamie heaved a sigh most extraordinary and a viscous opaque hue crawled across his eyes like emptiness.

"And Amae?" I whispered gently.

"Amae..." Jamie muttered her name as if it were made of air, without a flutter of contempt. "Amae does her best to take Louise away. As mothers do, its a protective instinct that I'm meant to understand." His finger rubbed away the ingrained hurt in his wiry forehead.

"Not all mothers are protective" I consoled, willingly enough to stretch out my hand to touch his but I retracted it embarrassingly. A dire hurt raged in my chest. It seemed every mother but mine could love her child. Jamie eyes instinctively sparkled with intense acknowledgement.

"You speak from experience?" But I wouldn't answer his question. And Jamie understood my silence in that idiosyncratic way he understood everything. "Amae loves her child retrospectively. But it's enough." Louise twisted her mother's hair in her fingers and pressed firmly to her mother's chest persisted in smelling that soft comfort that most mothers always seem to emit.

"What about Louise?" I asked. That strange defence for a child always seems the most important. It seems that in a world toiled selfishly by adults they are always the first to be dismissed. Jamie chuckled in a convincing sort of way but his eyes floated down to the floor.

"Louise is that kind of child that has an amazing capability to filter things out. She lives in her own gaiety. I think if the sky turned green and the grass blue she'd probably be the last to notice but the first to smile about it."

Jamie seemed to possess that kind of warmth that only a father would. I watched within him grow a paternal kind of yearning for a child that may have not even been his. It felt disheartening. In a certain way Jamie distinctly reminded me of Evan, that amidst the passionate revolving door of life, they'd always be some sort of opening.

"Won't you fight for her?" I asked him, my hands knotted themselves dextrously amongst each other. I never usually took an interest in other people's lives; that was something foreign.

"Fight against Amae?" Jamie exclaimed her name as if it was biting and cold. "I won't win. I can't possibly. The only link I have to Louise is through the remnants of a somewhat relationship like bond with Amae."

He scoffed and picked the tip of his thumb with his fingernail.

"You still love her?" I inquired. This puzzlingly methodical kind of questioning had rubbed off from Lucy. It was still something I winced at.

"I half love her" he asserted, admiring the lucid sunlight soaking against her linear hair. He clenching his fist in soft pride.

"Pardon?"

Jamie bit his lip cheekily. "I love her half of the time." His face shone with its previous lustre. "But it only counts for so little. She loved me not you see, well loved me enough to leave me with a child and flutter off into the sunset with G.I. Joe." I scrunched my nose in confusion. "I never caught his name" he explained.

"Did she ever say why?" I asked, perhaps a little too ostentatiously for Jamie's liking but questions were something he was taught to answer.

"No, she didn't have to. Amae has always led a precarious existence."

The hint of similarity didn't need to be exaggerated. Inside I felt cowardly indifferent to Amae yet somehow defensive of her situation.

"That didn't upset you though? Don't you feel you could just _hate_ her?"

"Oh no. There's nothing to hate. Amae had a dangerous childhood that has strung along with her with age."

I felt a sharp steel thread cut across the top of my throat.

"That's no excuse, though." My voice was bitter and rough and it hurt to strain it such.

"No, you're right. But it explains her actions, even if it doesn't justify them." Jamie caught another look at the fairly young woman with the child bundled up in her arms. It may have not hurt as much if she at least acknowledged his presence a little. But the beautifully grave woman talked with Lucy freely, tossing back her hair every few moments.

"She _is_ very beautiful". I remarked again, lest Jamie hadn't heard the first time. A sort of childish fear crept up on Jamie and he smirked in surprise.

"Oh, I wouldn't tell her that though. She takes all compliment in distaste. Watch this." As Lucy parted with Amae at the gate and Louise was pulled up higher on Amae's hip, Jamie stood grandly at Lucy's porch pole and screamed at the wind.

"You're beautiful Amae! Have I ever told you that? You're beautiful!" And to Jamie's purely contempt ridden remark Amae fixated him with a perplexed and haunting stare. Her lips curled with disgust and her cheeks paled in anxiety. And she fiercely paced off into the distance, her shadow following closely underfoot.

"Louise...I..." Louise waved carefully from behind her mother's shoulders while Jamie's last words were swallowed whole by the air.

"Jamie, please don't make things worse for yourself." Lucy muttered when she fluttered up the stairs in haste. She cupped her son's face delicately in her palms and as she pressed her forehead solemnly against his she whispered something of an unheard dismissal that sent Jamie straight for the blue fly screen door. And as he did he shuffled past me meekly placing a somewhat retired palm on my shoulder in a perplexing sign of gratitude.

I stood up hurriedly to leave. It was quite simple in my place to understand that I didn't belong here at this moment. And as I tucked my hair behind my ear, I scrummaged for the bag that I had carelessly tossed under my chair.

"Oh no Tess please. I didn't make shortbread for nothing you know." Lucy's purely affable smile, although retired glistened that radiating warmth that it did so aptly. I was compelled to stay, if only for the shortbread.

"Life. It's a little hectic for all for us at times. I suppose Hamlet was right, 'Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is to leave betimes?'" Lucy's red cheeks tired with exhaustion.

"Isn't that a little cynical for your liking Lucy?" I smiled and she nodded gently, a half smile uncreased itself from her screwed up lips.

Lucy dragged herself lifelessly across to the chair Jamie had occupied just before, bringing with her the tray of biscuits and tea and it sat carefully upon her knees. For the time it took her to pour me and herself a cup I'd found myself in a puddle of thought again. This time it was a little complex.

"Tess, is everything alright?" Lucy asked turning in her chair to take her usually confronting position next to me at the table. Inside me stirred a faint fire of recognition. I rubbed my fringe over my forehead.

"It was something Jamie said about people: 'You can tell a lot about a person by the way they walk'..." I mumbled, eyes still floating about with the thoughts on the porch rooftop.

"Mmm. True." Lucy managed with a gulp of strong black tea. "What does it remind you of?" Lucy asked inquisitively, helped herself to a icing coated biscuit. I rubbed my hands over my face in perplexed anxiety.

"Oh nothing really. Just Dylan." my head found itself resting against my arm again. The way it did when I said something I didn't quite understand.

"Oh..." Lucy coughed. She was a little surprised when she still munched on her biscuit; the blush across her face gave apology to her demise in etiquette.

"This boy Dylan..." Lucy finished laying down the now stagnant half biscuit onto her saucer. I smiled at the thought of Dylan being a 'boy' and amused at Lucy's authority in the word. He was a boy though, a scared, helpless little boy.

"Dylan was Evan's brother." I explained before Lucy burst her statement in to a question.

"A brother detective. The Jones' were quite rife in the police force?" Lucy asked and I brushed away her curiosity with a stiff nod. The force had brought so much grief to the Jones family yet they stuck with it, desperately. It was a more than an institution to them, it was family; they breathed it.

"He came by just after Evan died." I mentioned quite pointlessly, Lucy had already figured that bit out but I had to somehow ail her curiosity, her brow was so furrowed she looked like she was in pain.

"Mmm." she nodded in confirmation. "You two obviously shared a bond of sorts?" Lucy had given up on the biscuit at this point; the questions were too intriguing. But I just shrugged at her suggestion.

"He was Evan's brother. We got along..." I suggested, not really placing any conviction in my words. Lucy nodded affirmatively and then crossed her legs over swiftly as if she had come by a very interesting conclusion.

"But you thought there was something strange about him, when he just _appeared_ after Evan's death?" and I nodded at Lucy's question blindly.

"I hadn't called him yet. But he was his brother; I don't see how he couldn't have found out another way. It was what Dylan _did_ when he got here..."

* * *

_The mind of Dylan is a frenzied fire. When he appeared that one, very gloomy day in spring it was almost strange that he didn't scurry around, abundant with the colossal energy that made him the detective he was. I quite reasonably decided that it was Evan's death that subdued him so. So much in fact that when we both sat in PJ's office discussing the possibility of Evan's room being searched he almost cowered in his chair, slipping away as if something were to tear him into the earth. His passiveness surprised PJ too. PJ protested at the obvious personal connection Dylan and I would have to the case and questioned our judgement but Dylan just waved a fatigued hand at PJ and mumbled that he would wait for Homicide. The shock drawn across PJ's forehead was memorable, he felt so down trod by Dylan that his bleeding heart didn't protest to our little room search and he shooed us away from his office mumbling that Homicide would benefit from our efforts anyway._

_But Dylan's defeated demeanour sunk away at Evan's door. _

_I clutched onto the frame of his door like a scared little child, for the room was still very much a crime scene, a recognisable crime scene. Chris had done her part well in leaving every little patch of the small room untouched but I couldn't bare its stark familiarity. And of course it was a scene untouched, as if someone should be in the room but was torn out instead, signs of life left behind like stains._

_Evan's room always used to feel so warm and comforting. It was one positive aspect of having a little pub room, something I sometimes envied him over. He had his little space, built up with this bulging air of Evan, you could almost smell it as you walked in. But as I walked in this time, everything felt detached, the way a genuine crime scene did. It wasn't Evan's room anymore, it was just an ordinary room and what Dylan and I were doing was so very mundane._

_Maybe that's what stirred that passive passion in Dylan again. He tore through the room like he would a suspect's house. He pulled out draws and swiped over shelves and even dared to delve into the colossal mess in Evan's wardrobe. _Nothing_ felt significant to Dylan and it hurt. It hurt me. Evan's room was his little secret and Dylan washed over it like it was somebody else's._

_"Tess?" He asked confused. I could sense the bitter intrigue in his voice. Dylan was holding up a glass rigidly, through latex gloves he still felt like he was leaving a trace of himself behind. _

_Dylan gingerly wafted his nose over the puddle of liquid that remained in the glass and pulled an intriguing face to then shove it haughtily into one of his superbly folded plastic bags, as if it that glass wasn't his brother's._

_I dug my latex nails into the doorframe. I felt a certain shame over Dylan's apathy, maybe it was just his style to detach himself from reality, pull out the more logical conclusion behind this puzzling scene, it was of course a murder and we were liable to investigate._

_"Tess?" Dylan asked once again, on the floor lay bags of preciously packed items, 'evidence', and Dylan stood his arms akimbo, completely disregarding the fear washing over me like an inundating tide.. He was dead but it was still his, I couldn't possibly scour over his property like that without feeling so utterly disrespectful. Dylan though, had a bitterly disappointed look on his face, his wrinkled and heavily tired eyes so barely sat against his face; the colour had long been drawn away from his cheeks._

_"I want to know what happened to my brother Tess," he stated ever so quietly as I relinquished my firm hold against the doorframe. It softened me to hear those words. I often found myself so alone without Evan, Dylan understood that. I nodded sympathetically and set my very reluctant feet against the floorboards of Evan's room, ever so gently, there was still blood on the floor and I was eager not to tarnish every precious bit of evidence._

_"You can start on the bed." Dylan pointed at roughly, covering his mouth with his other hand. The sight of Evan's bed brought him a deep sense of disgust. "I can't touch it." he finished and with that he retreated back into the drawers of Evan's bedside dresser, his hands filing through pools of socks and underwear._

_I rubbed my hand against my face. It was remarkable that Dylan thought I possessed the strength to touch the meagre wooden bed. If anything, the scent of blood was enough to make you pule._

_The whole glorious thing stood like a shipwreck in the middle of the room. And out at the foot of the bed Dylan conveniently placed two deep paper bags to collect the linen in. The word 'evidence' didn't shout out at me when I looked before me. If you stood at a certain angle and looked right ahead then all you saw was that the bed had been slept it. The sheets curled savagely at the foot of the bed like the corrugated surface of a shell. They were so white that they almost reflected the green ceiling; it's what made the pools of blood so tarnishing. These viciously, dark patches of red, only about a hand in diameter spewed across the width of the sheet, some of it smeared against the wall the bed stood against; bloodied fingerprints floated across the mattress side. His pillow was so ghastly painted in red streaks. To add to the colour was a pool of crusty dry vomit that flaked so readily when you touched it. His bodily fluid left a horrific painting against his sheets. I could picture his second-last terrific struggle for life, there, on his very own bed. His hair smeared the blood on his pillow, his fingers smeared the blood against the wall and in a disturbing fit of convulsions, and his feet crumpled back the sheets to the end of the bed._

_My body felt weak and cold, soft tears rolled down my cheeks._

_"Are you okay Tess?" he asked soothingly, his hand still stuck in a drawer and without facing him I nodded roughly, my head hung as low as physically possible._

_"I can't do it." I whispered almost vapidly and I showed him my tears. Dylan screwed up his lips and shrugged._

_"Try his desk. The nostalgia might not be so inclement." he suggested and I wiped my anguish of my face with my wrist and headed over to the little corner in Evan's room that often left me so very intrigued._

_Maybe there was something in his books. Even if there wasn't, it would stop the hurt._

_Dylan didn't protest at my procrastination when I poured over the filth of sheets on Evan's desk. When Evan didn't write case notes, he liked to draw, just little things here and there, just enough to keep himself distracted. You could tell he got very bored late one night because he drew his own map of 'Middle Earth' on the back of a health insurance envelope. It was sketchy and dark, just like the forest 'Bilbo' trekked with his little company of hobbits._

_It was mostly junk, that mess of papers on Evan's old, heavy wooden desk. Dylan knew that. He also knew that as hard as we'd try there really wouldn't be any sufficient evidence to convict anyone of any crime because we didn't even know what we were looking for. So it didn't much matter that I stumbled across his 'Moleskine' notebook because unlike a journal or even a diary it didn't house anything personal, nothing that I remember seeing last time he poured over it. It was just significant; significant to the persona of Evan I was able to understand. It still felt his when I held it in my palms, it was big enough to fit, and the black cardboard cover felt so warm against my skin. Evan had a strange affinity to these notebooks and you could almost share it when you rubbed the pages between your fingers and they melted against them like silk._

_I gently pulled out his chair, covered in a large sheet of drooping plastic. There was nothing to be collected from the chair but Dylan was sorely meticulous._

_The first twenty or so of the 'cahier's' pages were graphitised over and over with heavy, black ink. Familiar names popped to mind, Les Anderson among many drawn in thick capitalised letters like an angry writer's frustration at a word. He wrote evidence out in lists, suspects in columns and notes in skinny margins. Nothing escaped Evan. I turned to the last fluttery page of ink in hope of something but it only bore one big fatly capitalised and strangely bolded name of Murphy. Evan knew who shot the Reilly twin long before we did, we should have listened._

_I skimmed the rest of the book, stopping only to see a page arabesque with red ink, something strangely out of the norm but the page was almost blank of text, at the top a plain heading of 'vows' and a column of shy looking numbers. There were only four and he was sure to leave them blank like he told me, he said it were better if it came from the heart._

_As I pulled the thought of dread from my mind I tried to flick through the remaining pages in a hurry but they raced past my finger unlike that of a notebook with pages. I carefully turned the pages and noticed that the next ten or so had been savagely torn out, something Evan could not possibly dream to do. It was unlike him to scorn something precious of his, he had a fanatical love of his little book, one that I often did not understand. I smoothed my fingers over the rough tear in the book's middle, the pages cut my gloves like steel. The last smooth page felt disheartening, it had a blander complexion as if it knew that its predecessors had suffered a terrible fate and it cowered from that same horrible thought. But in its middle it held a deep red stain, the same colour as the arabesque script before and it felt textured, there was writing on the other side. I turned the page elated and a stark red quote shone at me like a glowing fire:_

'_The truth lies where we seek it least'_

_That was all it dared to say. But a sudden fierce force ripped through my spine, my eyes closed in a dreadful pain. A thick deep voice whispered heavily and deep within my ear, grating the quote against my cheek with a hot kind of breath. Colours scaped across my mind like scathing glass and there before me became the picture of Evan, in his hand a stark worn book. He shut it quickly and as the floating dust settled his mimicked those same words that were scrawled across the page: 'Remember Tess, the truth lies where we seek it least.' The glaze across his calm blue eyes were fierce, almost boiling in urgency. The colours flashed away frightened and I ripped a piece of paper from his desk and rummaged deep in my pocket for a pen. I ran my fingers against his dust coated book shelf and ripped out the first book we had ever read, 'Nineteen Eighty Four'. My fingers shook as I blazed through the first twenty pages of the book coming to a sudden halt as a bright yellow line fell distorted against the page's crusty yellow._

_I wrote down the quote with furry and dropped the book to the floor, with phenomenal speed I stole through the next book and the next, the fallen books creating a puddle on the floor and when I'd finished I felt empty like his deep green bookcase._

_Dylan stood perturbed. The shock of my fury stirred up a difficult kind of anger. His plaid, boring shoes melted him into the floor._

"_What are you doing?" he spat, not indignantly but with that taste of foment. His hands were still deep within the confines of Evan's bedside dresser, colourful socks poked out like unfocused puddles. Dylan took one bemused stare at the circle of colour at my feet. I had no apparent respect for crime scene contamination. I could feel the thoughts flash colours through Dylan's mind, he should have laid out the plastic sheeting._

"_What that's you've got there?" Dylan would have indicated with his hands but his shoulder took that prominent flinch in the direction of the flicker of thin white in my palms. I spoke without words and only hot air rushed passed my lips, I flickered my eyes past the scrawl before me and like a child I hid the sheet behind my back, obviously shielding its importance._

"_Ah nothing, not really." My shoulders twisted in strange anxiety and red burnt up against my cheeks, all flustered and hot and Dylan, perplexed, tilted his head heavily to the side, a bright enunciated smile flashed across his blood red lips. He flashed a quick look to his left and bit his lip while he let out a sigh of amusement._

"_You two," he started before he turned back to address the drawer before him, sticking his finger in between socks like a little boy making mud pies. "You're just like ..." and he stopped, on purpose because his voice didn't linger like it did on the end of a question._

"_Like whom?" I asked, digging the sheet deep into the back of my pocket, still secretively, nothing left to be witnessed._

_Dylan turned and held out his fingers, clutched, like spiders. _

"_Moran and Cato." Dylan stated almost shaking off the invisible moisture built up on his latex fingers. I had my eyebrows furrowed and my face paled in inquisition. The words, they felt familiar but still very foreign as if they floated around the field of my mind waiting to be found. Dylan hadn't noticed my bewilderment, instead fixated on something intense he rolled his eyes about very methodically, turning over the thick pages in his head. Then shot back at me, Dylan pursed his lips._

"_Tess, what does ecstasy look like?"_

_I swallowed hard, the heat still vaporising off my hot cheeks. A white powder came to mind, delicate and blurred but very abrasive to the touch. I stared at Dylan intensely, he could distinguish the constituents of ecstasy just by its colour._

"_A white powder?" I asked, the question not bothering Dylan in the slightest. _

_He pivoted his jade, sharp shoes against the floorboards and it scratched out a piercing squeal. I could hear him smack his lips together tightly and a soft murmur pierced through his lips._

"_Mmm. Want to guess what's in there?" His latex finger pointed to the drawer._

* * *

Lucy tapped her fingers indignantly across the glass on the table. It was unlike Lucy to be subtly surprised, surprise never really came subtlety to anyone really, except maybe Lucy. As soon as her fingers stopping dancing on the glass they tapped against her chin and Lucy sunk deep into her chair, overcome in thought. I on the other hand drew into my chair sullenly. A sort of hot embarrassment that truly defied explanation had exploded in my chest, the cold metal edge did well to hide it. My eyes stirred around in my sockets making me sick, the swirl of avant garde decking bathed in spring spoiled sun swirled like custard. I wriggled my toes in anxiety, the pain embossed furrows in my stomach like a gall bladder stone. One loud and tempting sigh caught Lucy's attention. She gazed pertinently, if only a little unnerved for being torn away from thought.

"Tess?" she addressed me quite suddenly. My tongued rolled about in the pits of my molars.

"You haven't asked-" my hands wringed themselves on the end of my shirt and I stopped.

"About?" Lucy's delicate face paled, her emerald eyes pierced ominously.

I dug a bony finger along the bridge of my nose and pressed it hard until the blood drew away with pressure. With screwed up thoughts, I let out a rough sigh to calm the mess of lines in my forehead.

"The ecstasy" I almost whispered the words. Torrid awkwardness burned in my skin with the word. It carried with it a dark stigma even though the white powder probably only ever promised escape.

The ominous green in Lucy's eyes faded to an amused sort of yellow. When she squinted her eyes and pursed her lips so cheekily you knew she'd latched onto a deceptive catch in whatever it was that you had just said. Lucy swiped the table and she drew up her arms from under it. Clutched and rigid her knuckles pointed at me ruthlessly, their aged experienced warned me a little.

"Oh but I already know about the ecstasy." she smiled very plainly though deep within that heart of her I'm sure a tainted clot of amusement floated. I, with eyebrows almost fading into the roots of my hair felt strangely conned. Lucy didn't _know_ about the ecstasy because it was _meant _to be the highlight of my anecdote. In fact I had dwelled on it meticulously the night before, arranging the order of events so perfectly that no dishonourable notion could be made from it.

A little smile fluttered against Lucy's plain cheeks.

"Did you want me to ask whether Evan used drugs?" Lucy asked sincerely. I curled into myself upon hearing the question. And my fingers crawled up my chin to my lips where they dwelled there in mistake.

When my mouth opened to speak it only emitted hot air so I nodded briefly, Lucy's quaint nod of understanding gained.

"He didn't use the ecstasy that you and Dylan found in his drawer. I'm quite sure of that. Actually, I'm perfectly sure that it was just put there, maybe even hidden, for a very specific purpose."

My hand now sleeked down my arm in regret, my eyes tearing down to the matted glass.

"Tess," Lucy started softly, "I am objective, I promise. It isn't my job to form judgements. I know that you feel it your inert obligation to disassociated yourself with your memory of Evan as much as possible. You're scared that any kind of affection you did have toward him could concoct an entirely false image of him. But I know you wouldn't glorify Evan if it weren't just." A perfect pause was held captively in her lips. "It would be truly _beneath_ him to take ecstasy." Lucy's smiled seared a warm rift of calm in my stomach.

I smiled foolishly and my heavy shoulders fell apart in embarrassment. 'It would', I agreed privately to myself. If there was one thing I could honestly trust in Evan it was his distinguishing of reality and illusion. He didn't need to escape from a false sense of reality and he was perfectly hidden from illusion.

"Maybe I didn't glorify him _enough_?" The question felt strange on my lips. Lucy pursed and minced them into a smile.

"Maybe. But there's something else I'd like to know." Lucy made no effort to hide her curiosity, she drummed both sets of fingers along the glass in anticipation, anxiety was harder to hide then she thought.

"These quotes..." she began. The list in my pocket felt hot. The page sat crumpled, worn, even old against my jeans pocket waiting just aching to be retrieved as if it knew of its own integral importance. Feverishly my hand dug it way through the denim and when I had pulled it by the ear I let it go and it sat importantly in my palms.

Lucy carefully collected up the paper softly in her hands, treating it as if it were snow, liable to melt and crumple. The page always felt soft and yellow but when Lucy unfolded it somehow gained a strange sort of strength, almost like a dignity but not as pronounced.

Lucy's searing eyes scattered across the page as she came to its abrupt end. A smile softly crumpled against her lips.

"'Animal Farm'" she whispered gruffly, "I love 'Animal Farm'". And with her gentle excitement Lucy left the page to sink into the cold glass of the table. The calm sent a rash of fire up my legs, I hated spilling secrets as much as I hated retaining them. This was all too complex, I just wanted it all to disappear, I really should have just gone.

Lucy began to think, it was an amusing activity to watch and partly damning. She held the teapot in midair as if it were weightless, her hand gracefully held her chin. I waited but she did not finish, instead she lost her train of thought and poured hot honey liquid into my teacup. A jolt of frustration sent tea out from beyond my cup's edge.

"I give up Tess." she sighed drearily. "What does it all mean?" And the teapot crashed against the glass like it does when you've underestimated its weight.

"It didn't mean anything to begin with..."

* * *

_PJ sat crumpled in his chair, unamused and stiff from the lack of sunlight in his shaded office. The piece of paper that he carefully scrutinised lay in the far distance on top of his desk and PJ folded his head into his hands from exhaustion. I recoiled from tapping his bowling pin that presently sat perched on his filing cabinet and I watched PJ float his fingers through his imaginary hair._

"_I have no idea Tess." PJ's retired voice reverberated in his cold cell like a deep sigh. "Jones is..." he paused to swallow his words, "Jones was always cryptic but this..." PJ's hands fell across his forehead, too many times has he wiped the dingy sweat from his forehead. This sinking atmosphere in his room was cloudy, sticky and hot. "Have you thought that it may mean nothing at all? I mean I've barely read..." PJ flicked his hands about, almost in jest. I don't think he understood that the one instant Evan may have been serious would honestly contribute some suggestion to the mystery of his death._

_I slumped into the adjacent chair heavily and cast my head clumsily on my wrists. PJ muffled an apology, perhaps not in comfort but certainly out of some sort of respect. PJ folded his head into his palm again and I drew thick lines across his desk with the sweat on my fingertip._

"_None of this makes sense PJ." I whispered almost secretly. "The arsenic, the ecstasy, Dylan...this." my finger pushed against the corners of the crumpled page, I pushed it further into PJ's realm of sight, giving it another chance to be noticed but PJ retreated from the hole of his palms and scattered his fingertips across his parched lips._

"_Dylan?" he asked, almost as quickly as I had whispered. I shifted wearily in seat and with the intense stare PJ gave me came that atmosphere of sticky discomfort that comes between two officers that are both hiding the same fear from each other. I leaned in closer to conceal my whisper from the stealthy air._

"_It just don't feel right, _he _doesn't feel right. When we were searching Evan's room he...it's almost as if he blocked it all out." I sighed, PJ's eyes grew dim in confusion. "He was able to search that room down to the bare floor boards without the slightest cringe." PJ recoiled as the spitting sound of my whisper._

"_That's what makes Dylan Tess. He blocks everything out, it's what makes him so efficient." PJ usually held the most inept ability to reason, he could almost convince you that a square was round, given the time. But this time his eyes fluttered about nervously in his sockets, the sweat furrowed up on the lines in his brow and ran in lines down the length of his nose._

"_What if it were Jo?" I asked desperately and PJ promptly folded his arms. "You'd surely _feel _something wouldn't you? Even if you did your best to repress it. PJ's arms soften as he breathed in a complicated gasp. "Dylan never felt anything PJ, he was just, empty." A tedious half smile curled upon PJ's face as he noticed my dire concern._

"_I know Tess." he comforted. "But we can't just assume anything..." that tinge of childish reproach in PJ's voice felt bitter and I forced my mouth open in protest. "But hey, I'll keep an eye on him. I promise". PJ smiled. It was the only genuine smile that I has seen in the past day or so. PJ winked at my silent gratitude and as we both straightened ourselves up to leave we heard a vicious clamour at the door._

_A violent battle with the door handle left only one suspect on our minds. Dylan surfaced through the door, the fowl odour of PJ's room sunk in the pits of his lungs as he desperately tried to cough it away._

"_Am I missing something?" he asked, shuffling forcefully into PJ's office as if it were simply his own. PJ messed up the bundle of papers on his desk, indicating work and I slowly slipped out of my chair to the imminent safety of the door. Dylan's hand on my shoulder tore me back and he pushed my somewhat amicably back into my chair. "You better hear this." he grumbled loosely. The absence of a chair before him quickly stirred him across the room where he pulled out another and jammed it roughly next to mine, its steel foot piercing through my toe._

_I sat firmly deer eyed and PJ concealed a cough behind a closed fist. Dylan breathed sharply and turning to me he examined my face with sheer intensity._

"_You look guilty" he remarked, the sharp but insipid blue of his eyes probed the innards of my soul. "What are you conspiring then?" A dumb smile surfaced on my mouth and a red hue that PJ quickly noted as embarrassment._

"_Oh nothing too important, just plotting to blow up the Rialto, you know..." PJ's attempt at a joke was almost unheard, my stupid shrug and giggle marking its only recognition. Dylan faded the comment deep into the recesses of his mind and without further hesitation dumped a large, dust plagued folder on the mess on PJ's desk. Dust soared up like dense clouds and choked the air like smoke._

"_I have something for you..." my eyes stirred over to PJ with intense concern, who mimicked my expression almost perfectly. Dylan's crept slowly across my bony spine. "We have our first suspect" he mumbled carelessly and he feverishly churned through the manila folder. The dust settled eerie on the pages._

* * *

"Oh a suspect?" the intense excitement in Lucy bubbled out of her like a teenage girl's. She hadn't touched her biscuit and her tea had grow old and yellow and she still huddled it close to her to keep it warm. I waited for the concern or intrusive question but it never came. Lucy has fixed her intense stare at me and I was forced to continue.

* * *

_Chris' anxiety has flared up on her face as she saw Dylan storm through the Imperial's kitchen doors. With that reluctant desire to stir trouble PJ and I crept through the doors of the Imperial kitchen far later than he. Chris has pulled me aside feverishly with one hand._

"_Tess, I know what all the evidence points to and I know that you have a job to do but Tess..." Chris slurred her words angrily and dextrously and one hint of that complete apprehension sent a wallowing sick to my stomach and a passively cool guilt smothered my throat._

"_I'm sorry Chris" I whispered painfully. I gripped her shoulder soothingly with my palm._

_In the kitchenette, the noise rang like a flat bell._

"_Arrested?" Sam protested, waving about his sharp butcher's knife with resent. "For what exactly?"_

"_Put down the knife Sam." Dylan spat. Sam felt bitter resentment spike through his blood and with vehement force threw the knife..._

* * *

"Mum?" Jamie pierced his head out timidly from behind the protruding fly screen door. Lucy turned around sharply and in only that way that Lucy possibly could she seared her son's eyes with a painful look of ingratitude. He'd ruined the suspense of the murder mystery and Lucy could only wallow inside. Jamie quickly noticed his mother's anger as I slowly snuck my hands under my chair.

"Oh I ah, I thought you might be finished. It's just the paint you see it's all over the..." Jamie never did finish his sentence as that flare of annoyance sought Lucy to find refugee in the burrow of her palms.

"I think I might go now..." I muffled quietly almost hoping that they wouldn't hear and in that sparse moment of silence I'd be able to slip away unnoticed for yet another day.

But at the mention of retreat both of them fired up in protest.

"No no Tess. Please don't feel like you need to go..." Lucy pleaded, almost levitating off her chair in anxiety but Jamie broke in half way and muttered that he'd easily deal with the paint himself, even if it _was_ all over the antique Persian rug.

I scratched the frenzied hairs on the back of my neck. "Oh no, I really do have to be going. Grace promised me an apple pie and I said I'd be over before two." I lied discreetly, Grace never liked apple pies.

Lucy sighed forlornly, it was just her luck to miss the ultimate climax of my utterly chaotic life. "Will you come over tomorrow? I'll send him to Peru or better still Antarctica and he'll perish in silence." I chuckled at the thought of Jamie's bony corpse being savaged by carnivorous seals. "I promise." Lucy smiled and I tucked a timid piece of hair behind my ear.

"I'll see" I smiled gently. I turned to face the searing horizon in front of me, blotted out of sight by ill place trees. As I huddled my bag carelessly into my chest, I stole away for the safety of my empty home.


	8. Chapter 8

I haven't done this in such a long time. I've lost the spirit for it really. I think I should apologise. This isn't what it was meant to be but it was either this or another year and a half of waiting. Enjoy. Oh and if anyone can solve linear first order differential equations you're asked to e-mail me. I shall repay you in nice compliments and possible reviews. Honest.

Chapter Eight

Hot tin melted sticky against my hands. I drew my fist away from the body of Lucy's dark, solid door, I hesitated to knock, Lucy's door was never shut. Instead I pushed it ajar lightly with my palm and it came away completely, with a whirling yawn.

"Hello?" I called into the hollow cavity. Silence answered. I stepped inside the hall, vigilantly. My feet twisting to the dark shades of the floor; careful not to tread on the patterns of colour washed into Lucy's floorboards by her magnanimous stained glass. The empty hall drove into the distance of the house like a complex burrow, the floor glowing with incandescence of sunlight. The burrow splintered into princely rooms, some of which I hadn't dared to enter, even in secret inquisition. I dragged my fingers silently against her burnished white walls, creeping effortlessly into the second door on the left . It was the only floor that beamed sordid light against the thick boards, melting in like hot flowing wax.

I peered softly into the opening. Light streamed boldly, from a large undraped window, covering the carpet in a magnificent golden hue. It bathed the whole room in a fire of yellow, scorching violently up the walls. Only seven figures cast a dark gaping glow; four light but heavily elaborate chairs, a small round table with eagle feet, a towering bookcase mortified with heavy peeling texts and a fierce vermillion wall hanging; archaic arabesque gold curved patterns wound tightly in its flaring knots. A sudden light clash averted my attention to the shadow crouched into the table, sitting deeply in one of the light chairs. It was Jamie's stately frame, huddled over a liquid mirror of coloured tiles. He poured the pieces onto the vivid sheen of wood, the colours flaring in the light. I pressed myself too deeply into the wall and his attention was startled.

"Oh, hello?" I asked, shifting to hide away against her door frame. But Jamie's face rose and smiled and his eyes shone brilliantly in his face. He fixed his attention again on the splay of colour in front of him, counting imaginary squares with his fingertips before leaning precariously to fit another piece in perfectly, without the slightest hesitation. I moved chaotically against the wall and Jaime peered at me again.

"You're _not_ a mirage!" he exclaimed, mockingly. I curdled away in embarrassment. I shouldn't have walked in uninvited.

"The door was open...I did call out..." I stumbled over my words perfectly, red flooding my face. I felt Jaime study my face with perfect intrigue, soaking in every detailed mannerism. He brushed the side of his palm against his mouth suddenly and chuckled to himself. He rose from his chair and his suit uncreased itself with the weight of his movements. He stopped just outside the door and fixated on the light metal package I held in my arms.

"You've missed her." he said in an obvious tone. "She won't be back for an hour or so." he stated again, not paying much interest to anything except the package. And he pointed to it, vaguely before his crossed his arms in distaste.

"I don't really _like_ pies." he said frowning and his arms rose to comfort the anguish on the back of his neck. I cradled the pie close to my chest, letting the warmth of package seep into my lungs. An awkward smile crept into the corner of my cheeks.

"It's not really..." but Jaime cut me off with a very vigourous nod.

"I know" he smiled, "I just wanted to see your reaction." And he laughed silently rolling his tongue against the bottom of his molars. "Can't let it go to waste though." he lifted the pie from my grip and absconded to the kitchen, hurrying back with a slice cut neatly square atop of a pristine white plate, a fork crashing into its side. He nudged the plate carefully into my ribs.

"Here, you can be my assayer." he teased watching my smile drop from my face. And plunging his arm back down to his side he felt for my palm, slipping his dextrously into mine, a move too precarious for reason. He led me into the room bulging with light and fitted himself back into his mediative picture, leaving me completely absent. I rolled my palm against the firm wood of the chair in front me, the cold lacquer feeding into my skin.

"Maybe, I should go?" I asked quietly, careful not to disturb his silence. Jamie didn't respond, he sifted tiny tiles of colour about in his hands, examining each and every shade. "I just thought I might make an appointment for tomorrow?" I hinted at his silence. "I can leave a note..." my voice croaked, a little insolent in nature. Jamie waved a palm dissuasively before his eyes fixed heavily on my face.

"You haven't touched your pie? It _is_ laced with something, isn't it?" A tiny audacious smile protruded from the corner of his mouth. I crossed my arms promptly in resentment.

"No." I remarked deftly, pulling out his mother's light oak chair and fixing myself daintily upon it. "I don't _do_ assassination".

"Good to know" Jamie taunted light-heartidly. They were his last words for what felt like an eternity. Jamie could simply dissolve like that, dissolve into his own world without the slightest hint of return. I watched him slur the painted tiles under his fingers with thundering mess. And ever so gently he would lift one to the bouldering light, examine its surface, fix its corners and feel the rugged texture of its sides. And just as gently he would return them to the exact same spot he had retrieved them from previously. Every time, the movements, like art, flowed and melted into the room.

"I thought you were meant to be in Antarctica?" I asked, disturbing his silence. His eyes flared and lashed at mine.

"Where?" he questioned.

"Antarctica" I gulped, the word like slurry, ran thick down my throat. Jamie darted his eyes about, amused. And then he stopped, only momentarily but with every fleeting second he soaked up my figure with his mind.

"You never mentioned he was dead." he stated, quietly.

"Who's dead?", My eyes widened with a certain terror but Jamie just shifted colour against the table and smiled.

"Now Tess, she hasn't told me anything." he shook his head firmly, his mellow eyes piercing dominantly against the light. A gasp of breath relinquished its hold on my chest.

"How...?" I breathed, pressing one hand sharply into the next.

Jamie coughed slightly and shifted his chair back, plunging himself into a halo of flooding light. It lifted up his hair onto its very ends and burned through them like hot ashes. I swallowed in muted awe. He was mage-like.

"People are very intriguing Tess. They're like puzzles. Every little expression they make are pieces in the greater puzzle of their identity." And with that he remained silent and returned deftly to his puzzle, arranging every piece with utmost precision. I disappeared from his world, he blurred me out entirely. Until a sudden moment where he paused, his finger tapping lightly on a tile.

"You were engaged." he stated again, calmly. Shifting his eyes to see my hands sweep away into my armpits. His face flared with affirmation. He had discovered my secret.

_In the distance of the dust swirl, Evan hid deep in a dark garage, talking freely with the mechanic beside him. The two men spun friendly circles around each other in conversation and intermittently Evan would grip his oily, faded shoulder with a gentle ferocity that came with companionship. _

_I turned and watched the heat weave, mystifying patterns across the steel bonnet of his Ute. The wind breathed heat under the floor and it swept up through the thin doors bathing the entire air with a hot smell. I leaned my head against the hollow cool of the window pane; it warmed to the heat of the fear on my temple. Puddles of cool sweat swept across my cheeks and rolled down my eyelids as the heat of the morning sun choked my skin with its fire._

_A rumbling knock crashed the pane against my face. I tore my face to see the culprit who disturbed me, his solid figure dousing my face in shadow. A sinking recognition filled the hole of my empty stomach and I ripped the door open and flung myself into the man's arms._

_"Teddy!" I whispered childishly into his ear while I fed the man closer into my gripping hug. He hugged me equally firmly, pressing his worn away cheek against my own. I closed my eyes and breathed in his smell. I loathed the smell of engine oil but for Teddy it was what made him. _

_I felt reluctant to leave his hold but he eventually pushed me away with a soft determination. Gripping my shoulders he peered into my face and studied it diligently. After careful consideration he relinquished his grip and filed his oily hands away into the recesses of his navy blue overalls._

_"Well, you haven't changed." he smiled, content with the conclusion that his sibling still held that firm determination that he was innately proud of. I smiled gently and wished that I could say the same about him. But Konàn had changed._

_I ran my hands down his once very able and muscular arms. His figured had hollowed, it was still immense and secure but years of pitiless work had drained away the youth that I had come to admire in my brother. He had become a very rigid and pale man. The sun had eaten away his face and made it golden, vacant and strained. His lips were almost skeletal and an unnatural deep red. And his hair too had darkened to a rough sandy blonde that whipped across his forehead unkempt. Fortunately his eyes were untarnished, they still glistered a fervid ice colour. His gaunt nose was routinely smeared blue and I reached to wipe the oil away he just as automatically swiped my aback turning to face a thoroughly bemused Evan._

_"Teddy?" he asked, picking away at the fresh stubble on his chin, raising a smile in amusement._

_Konàn combed through his hair in slight embarrassment._

_"It's a pet name. She always thought 'Konàn' was a little harsh." Konàn flickered his gaze at me apprehensively. And a cheeky grin tore across Evan's face, his eyes lit up churlishly and he stored away the name for safe-keeping._

_Stricken by Evan's nature I turned to him and pointed at my brother lamely._

_"Evan this is..." I started but Konàn caught my hand and placed it back down by my side._

_"I know Jonesy." he glanced at me gratefully._

_"And I know Konàn" Evan concluded. "We used to go to school together." Evan explained quite flagrantly as if the idea was ultimately obvious._

_"But I.." I began, the shock of familiarity had sunk itself into my chest. I widened my eyes in protest. I didn't understand how Teddy could have possibly met Jones under any circumstances, particularly without my knowledge._

_"When I ran off I came across Helen at a train station in Melbourne. She thought I ought to get back to school and knew of a way in which I could earn my semesters without having to pay." Konàn eyes narrowed shyly into his face. There was so much he had avoided telling me, he was embarrassed by life and avoided it vehemently. The first chance he was able, Konàn escaped. But I had to pay the consequences. It was I that woke up one morning to find that the only other soul I could trust had disappeared without a single word and left me the enormity of my family. It took me years to forgive him, I only managed to as I thought that if I were ever to see him again I would hate myself if I despised him._

_Evan's quite figure emerged again in explanation._

_"Konàn was Field's, the keeper's apprentice between terms. And boarded with Helen, his wife and his son Geof." A glitter of a smile appeared on Evan's face as a memory surfaced in his mind. "And he used to sit next to me in maths. He used to copy my trig off me. Too bad I knew." Evan teased and pulled a superior face in Teddy's direction. I remained motionless, it was almost as if these two men had conspired and planned this encounter for years, just to watch my face fade into pale vacancy._

_"Tess?" Evan questioned, he had noticed that I had failed to take a breath. His heavy hand weigh down against my shoulder, nudging me slightly from my trance. I stared at him puzzled but he smiled at me amused._

_"Well?" he asked Konàn. "I'm guessing it's the alternator." professed Evan in a mildly informed way. Konàn threw a damp oiled cloth to Evan's chest._

_"It is the alternator." he mumbled mechanically, " Your brushes are too short." And Evan nodded astutely and stole away into the darkness of the garage._

_"He didn't know about me did he?" I asked, my eyes seeped with petition. I clutched tightly onto the chest pocket of his overalls and Teddy clutched fiercely onto my wrist until I let go. He licked his lips awkwardly and shuffled his eyes into corners._

_"Konán!" I begged. It was imperative to keep my past a lonely secret._

_"He didn't." he muttered and swiped an blue part from the depths of his pocket, pressing into his palm with a clenched fist. "I didn't tell him much Tess. I thought if he knew he'd think poorly of me. I was already the keeper's hand while he was a commander's son, your commander's son." He uttered with that light tone of voice that had so often comforted me in the night. I smile graciously and with the only affection I had mustered, I brushed away the scraggly fringe from his eyes, running my fingers across his forehead._

_I walked a little deeper into the sheltering cool of his garage and lent my frail figure against his latest project. I picked away savagely at my hand, each nail gliding into my pale and satin skin._

_"He's asked me to marry him." I whispered, bowing my head. Konán shuffled his feet heavily across the floor in my direction, picked up a heavy metal part and began prodding it with his sullen fingers._

_"And?" he asked miserably. "Will you?" he peered at me, his crystal eyes searing under his heavy brow. He was very aware of my habits. I fell miserably deeper into the skeleton of the old Ford._

_"I don't know what to say..." I breathed and Konán sighed, almost throwing the heavy metal block from his palm onto the roof of the Ford. _

_"Tess, you can't keep this up." he muttered woefully._

_"I'm just afraid, that's all." I explained my voice dulling to that redolent tone of self pity. My lips quivered and my jaw shook with repressed hurt. I hunched over deeply, I felt ashamed._

_"Have you told him?" Konán asked now too weighing his figure against the dust sprinkled skeleton._

_"I can't!" I hissed, my eyes narrowing. "Not that! I swallowed away the apprehension in my throat. Konán shuffled his feet underneath himself, wiping his face free of anxiety._

_"You don't trust him Tess?" he murmured from the frame of a vacant window, peeling away the dust with gentle swipes of his hands. A certain bitterness started to spike at the roof of my mouth. It didn't matter whether I could trust him, it mattered whether or not that trust would do; trust was always an ephemeral concept. I gazed away unconvincingly while Konán sighed deeply into his chest._

_"Tess, I know what they did to you." Konán touched my arm and followed my face with solid perception. Konán was there when my mother's 'men' tore me from his grasp and dragged my weak body into a quiet room, where you couldn't hear my piercing screams. Once they were finished they'd leave me there, bruised, tarnished and broken. And only Teddy would nurse the pain away. _

_Konán wiped my tear stained eyes with an abrasive tissue. _

_"I know they hurt you Tess. But not all men are like that" he fed his arms around my waist._

_"Not Jones?" I asked, the pink wearing thin from my cheeks._

_"Not Jones" Konán smiled and drew his arm from around my waist and returned them securely to his pockets. He had heard Evan return at the call of his name, Evan's powerful figure emerged from the void._

_"Are you okay to go Tess?" he asked, a little more gentle than I had imagined; he had caught the glaze of wet along my eyes. I nodded slowly and watched him sink towards the Ute. I pulled away from Konán's presence with a solemn nod._

_"Tess!" Konán grabbed my wrist, leaving his blue stained against my skin. He dragged me close into his chest, fixing his eyes squarely on mine he whispered in_

_low spitting voice. "You hate insincerity Tess. And Jones doesn't deserve to be lied to." He pulled his face away and with a small smile his kissed my cheek and pulled me into a loose hug._

_"Do you promise to keep in touch Tess?" he asked pulling himself out of my arms and clutching onto my palm. I nodded softly and he slipped a small piece of paper against my palm. I had promised him once that he'd never lose me and Teddy regarded a promise with the same importance that he guarded his life with._

_Teddy watched us drive away, smearing the oil from his hands against his loose overalls before he waved us off into the scathing heat. _

_I tossed his warning around in my mind. Peering over at the cool look on Evan's face I wondered whether he'd forgive me my lies._

"What is this?" Lucy's voiced boomed violently into the room, extinguishing the vivid heat. Jamie shifted his chair callously and fled across the room, tearing his mother away with a spin. They hid in the corridor, like hobbits.

"Jamie..." his mother whispered, holding herself only centimetres from his face. "What was that?". Lucy emphasised the word with a poignant scorn.

"I was just being friendly?" Jamie's voice spiked the word with undue mock surprise.

"No wit, you hear!" Lucy scolded but her voice faded into a squeamish whisper. "I see the way you look at her." she whispered and a paused softly. "And this taunting?" she reproached, Jamie must have been silent. Her voice clashed a sudden horrid tone, she was anguished. "I can't approve!"

"Did she tell you that they were engaged?" Jamie sighed. Lucy's silence screwed itself into her chest.

"She's lost someone she loved. I know how that feels. We have common ground, that's all." Jamie in a manner devoid of all impending emotion. I felt a sudden heat crawl up into my face. He could understand my emotion but he certainly couldn't share it. He loved Amae, he must.

"She doesn't deserve pain." Lucy breathed. I felt deeply hollow inside. This invasion into my mind was belittling. I sloped deeply into hold of the chair.

"Mum, pain's a perfectly legitimate emotion. One by which we measure our happiness." He theorised effortlessly, the pages of a very detailed manual flurried through his mind.

"Jamie, what am I?" Lucy's voice speared with reproach. She silenced her son the way an academic does, with argument. "You don't need this pain either. You still have Louise and you need not confuse her any longer." Lucy pleaded.

"I don't." Hurt bled from Jamie's voice. "I don't have Louise." The sound of scattering pages scratched along his body. "The judge said that due to the complexity of the situation he ought to revoke Amae's plea for sole custody without visitation rights. But I'm not her biological father. Legally, I have no rights whatsoever." Jamie sighed without profound emptiness. It takes very little to break a man.

"Legally?" he mother gasped hysterically, spitting the word out like aperitif.

"I get one hour, every other Saturday and I can call her whenever I like" Jamie's voice fell, defeated. Lucy shifted quietly against the walls of the hall, swaying. A certain painful silence appeared and soaked into the hall.

" I have to get back. Please, Jamie, leave her alone." Lucy choked the last few words out harrowingly.

I sat, a frozen mess in Lucy's room and she paced the breadth of it anxiously. She had apologised profusely for Jamie's intrusion but I don't think that the apology was solely for his benefit.

She leaned over in a state of confusion. She had picked up my hand and it froze against the heat of her fingers.

"You never mentioned anything about being engaged Tess?" she stated her voice sharp and pained. She gazed at me patiently while my eyes flew dream-like over her room.

"I...it," my eyes rose fiercely to meet her. "It didn't last very long" I sighed and the impending hurt faded away.

_The long veil of dark liquid spilled across the smooth white sand with turbulent gasps. Lights peppered across the foreshore burned opaque circles into the soul of the pure sand beneath. A smooth blanket of sand rolled under my feet as I strode up to Evan's side, precariously I slipped my palm into his. He leaned his body cooly against the heavy stone wall blocking the tired suburban path from the horror of the sand. I pressed myself into his side secretly, sharing his warmth. He breathed in the beating air slowly, the salt stinging in the pits of his face. _

_'What was it that you wanted to tell me?' I whispered watching the light draw uncanny shadows against his tired face. He pressed himself tangibly against the wall, rubbing the grain against his back. He turned to face me, frightened. He ripped his hand from mine scrunched them both into his shirt before regretting the lapse of gesture and bitterly turned away to watch the sea. It crashed fiercely into the calm mask of white, recklessly tearing away a deep chasm._

_'The thing is...' he swept his fierce body around again only to recoil, childlike back to the sea._

_'What is?' I asked slipping into the shade of the wall._

_'I love you, yeah?' he turned again, spitting out that statement as if it were foreign. He shifted closer to my frame. 'I'm not very good at this.' he whispered against my face. A gentle warmth spread across my chest. _

_'You do love me' I whispered softly, my eyes mellowing in the dim moonlight. I slid my hand against his back and pulled myself into his arms, moulding my emaciated figure into his sturdy form. I pressed my ear into the warmth of his chest and felt the chaotic beating of his heart. For one small moment in time I wanted his intimacy. _

_Evan gulped severely and plucked his body away from mine. His eyes scattered across the shore, his mind paced furiously and he shifted his weight across the sand, ineptly sinking into grooves. He turned suddenly._

_'If I asked, would you, Tess, ah, would you marry me?' he slurred his words boyishly and floundered him arms about, aimlessly. I took a moment to breathe, the sudden weight of the word 'marry' tasted solid and heavy in my mouth. I felt like I had swallowed a rock._

_'I...' I tried to breathe but my stomach felt tight and fiery. I needed to vomit._

_'Tess?' Evan breathed, concerned; even the dim light couldn't disguise the colour dripping off my face. He gripped my shoulders with a nervous ferocity. I could see the lines of worry crowd into his forehead and guilt drenched the wet of his eyes. My face twisted in anxiety._

_'You don't want to.' he whispered. A sort of vicious embarrassment blazed red against his cheeks like panicked sirens. Evan, fixed with fear slid himself away along the sand moulding his feet into the grey vacuums._

_I heaved a tremendous sigh and vomit collected in the back of my mouth. It was the right thing to do, I assured myself. It was the right thing to do._

_'Why?' he breathed, his voice choking suddenly on air. 'What's wrong with me?' he asked in a disgusted tone, Evan peered down at his unveiled palms and then quickly curled his arms into his chest to keep away the cold. My heart thrashed itself against my ribcage, severing into pieces. And tears meandered slowly down my face like lost raindrops. My mouth felt cold and heavy. What could I say?_

_' Don't know...' I started but he had turned away. I thought he may have started to cry but he swept away in anger against the cool of the night. I pressed my palms into my faces and screamed into the inner depths of my soul. How could I hurt him?_

_I followed his footprints into the dark, my feet sinking into the deep orifices he left. He sat sunken into the water's edge, the foam lapped against his knees. He felt my approach, almost as if he could hear my warmth in the dark. I sat next to him, slipping my legs into the waves, my body raw with pain. We sat in the silence of the water, it sprayed against our waists._

_'I know why' he stated cooly, the reason didn't hurt him. 'You're scared of me' he whispered, the words sinking away into his chest. That notion frightened him, the woman he loved was innately petrified, of him._

_'Don't be angry' I whispered coarsely swallowing a hard lump of guilt. I touched his wet knee with the soft warmth of my palm. 'Please' I soothed but he shifted his body across the sand and tore my hand away. 'You have to understand, it's not you' I whispered sorely, the waves crashed impatiently across my chest. Evan sighed disbelievingly and he didn't look at me. Every part of me disgusted him, genuinely. I tried again, to find that flicker of concern he used to save for my purpose only, I buried my hand under the frothing cool, searching for his liquid palm._

_'You do believe me, don't you?' I asked, perhaps too much in haste. _

_'No' he sighed, shifting his solid thighs through the rush. 'I don't.' _

_I had never found solace in Evan's agreement, it was never significant. But his lack of unabated trust bit through the flesh of my heart and smeared it with an impounding rage. It was so very easy to be angry, I had never denied Evan any sliver of anger towards me, in fact I encouraged it as best as I possibly could. I wanted him to hate me just as much as he loved me, maybe more, as long as it would protect me. And I sheltered Evan from my past to protect myself again, I needed no-one's pity, especially not Evan's. He loved me, that was embarrassing enough._

_Water drew deep and hungry gulps soaked through my loin and into the pits of my beaten chest. It slowly became hard to breathe, the weight of the foam drawing away every impending gasp. No, I didn't want Evan's anger, perhaps just for a moment, I wanted his fearless love. Deny a man the taste of freedom and he will never plead to try it; but grant a man the feel of liberty and part from it, he will not. _

_I turned to face his darkened face, turned away with relentless scorn._

_'There's something I want to tell you.' I professed, my voice barely a whisper, yearning to be ignored. But Evan shifted marginally, he had sensed the remorse in my tone. _

_'There was just the two of us before Bridie was before.' I started loosely, 'Konàn and I. And well Mum, but she wasn't around half the time. And when she was she was either drunk or asleep.' Evan shifted again, loosely, in the murky pool._

_'And it was okay.' I explained. 'We loved our own company half the time. We'd walk run off to the park at dawn and then Konàn would walk me to school when we felt like it. And it wasn't so bad at home either,' my voice spiked redolent with fear. 'I'd always sweep up Mum's mess when she was out and Konàn would rustle up something for dinner, when we could afford to have any. But you know, we didn't mind being hungry half the time, just so long as it was quiet.' I paused, unfamiliarly. A tide of heinous disgust rushed pasted my wrists. 'Mum had her men over a lot' I swallowed heavily. 'And if we didn't get out fast enough they'd lock us in the bathroom for the night or so. I hated sleeping there. There was this massive nest of rats underneath the sink that would ground their teeth on the corners of the rotting tiles at night.' I stopped and breathed in a bit of the silence. Evan had scarcely moved. 'But then Mum found out she was pregnant with Bridie and she didn't have a clue who the father was. So she didn't have any one to chase for child support. It paid our rent.' I mumbled deep into the pits of my wrinkled hands. 'So we got evicted.' I whispered. 'A couple of times. Sometimes we stayed in this shelter in the city. At least there we had more than just baked beans for tea but that place was full of junkies. The police raided it one time and found that one of the younger guys was growing marijuana in the wall and roof cavities so we were all ordered off without any place to go.' I sunk my feet further and further into the melting wet sand._

_'But Mum had this gift for talking up men.' I spoke quietly, my voice tarnished with hurt. 'Apparently she'd met someone useful while we were at the shelter. He'd found us a place in a tenement house just outside Tarneit. Bridie was born there. And for a while we were all okay. This guy wasn't too bad, his name was Mitch and he had a car. He drove Konàn and I to school on a good day and he even said that he'd look after Bridie when Mum got work as a factory hand. And he took us to the fair once and bought us all ice-cream. I'd never had ice-cream before.' I chuckled and wove sand through the gaps in my fingers. 'Konàn and I fought over Bridie's untouched chocolate ice-cream. We were really happy Evan, we really were. Mum even stopped drinking.' My voice dropped a sudden melancholy note and the foam swelled over my chest._

_'But Konàn found something in the middle of the night. He found Mitch's stash of cocaine under the fridge but he thought it was Mum's. He was so angry. He woke me up in the middle of the night and made me help him get rid of it. He said that the only way Mum could ever stick to her promise was that if we got rid of all of her drugs. And so we dumped all of it in the creek behind the house. All of it." I whispered gently, the stench of the green liquid creek coursed through my brain._

_'The next day I thought we were really in for it. Mum was walking on eggshells the whole morning and we weren't allowed to speak during breakfast. But nothing happened.' I sighed. 'Mitch even told us he'd take us to the magic show that was coming up from Melbourne. And he did,' I smiled, 'He really did. He packed everyone into the car, except me. And he told Mum to drive down to the reserve and wait for us. He told us that he had a surprise in the kitchen and he needed me to help carry it over. Konàn whispered that I shouldn't go. But I wanted to, we deserved it. I really wanted that prize.' My fingers started to twist into severe knots under the water._

_'But when I walked into the kitchen, there was nothing there, and Mitch didn't even stop by, he just tore my arm into the bedroom and locked the door behind us.' I paused to see the affection pour from Evan's face but he sat still, engrossed but consciously distant. I swallowed harshly, my saliva searing into the wall of my throat. _

_'He started laying into me, telling me that he knew exactly what I'd done. He told me that he knew I'd stolen his stash and he'd kill me for it. And he gripped the top of my throat and pressed his fingers into it, really hard, until I couldn't swallow." my throat seized up in anguish. I drew my sleek wet palms across my neck to dull the spiked pain._

_"And then when he knew I could still hear him he told me that the only reason he could afford to keep us here was because Mum was supplying him with cocaine, speed, whatever he felt like. And if I were a good girl, if I knew what was good for me and my family, I'd do exactly what he wanted me to. And I did. I didn't even struggle when he tore off my dress." The words froze in the pit of my mouth. I saw Evan's solid figure shallow in the cool bath._

_"I don't remember much past that. I just remember feeling dizzy the next morning and I hurt a bit. But it was alright. I was a good girl, every day after that. It stopped hurting after a while. And it was so worth it. Mitch drove Konàn and I to school every morning and we went to the fair every time it came around and we even went to the beach once. Mitch said that it had to be a secret, so I didn't even tell Konàn but I think he spotted the dried blood on my sheets that next morning. But he didn't say anything until he was sure. He was always so careful.' I smiled 'And I remember, he woke me up in the middle of the night and crawled into my bed with me and held onto me and said that he wouldn't let him hurt me anymore. He said that I didn't have to do what he wanted me to and that he'd tell Mum about it and it would be okay. Teddy did tell Mum, she didn't believe him. She said that we were worthless and ungrateful for everything that Mitch had done for us. We didn't know it then but she confronted Mitch that very night and he must have denied everything but he waited until Mum went out with some friends the next night and he broke into my room while Teddy and I were asleep. He told me that I was bad at keeping secrets and that this time I'd pay for it and I did then he ahh,' I paused, riddled with guilt. ' He...he dragged me out of Konàn's arms and into his room. He hurt me. Again and again and again and again. Until I couldn't hear Konàn screaming at him to stop anymore. The next morning Mitch smashed his face into the front window and told Mum that Konàn did it and that if he ever did it again, he'd kill him. Teddy ran away. And Mum moved us to Epping, she was so angry that we moved but I, I just wanted Teddy back.' I waited for the inevitable flood of tears but they never poured down my cheeks. There was only a deep resounding weight that lifted from the middle of my sunken chest. I swallowed hard. It was over. It was over._

_Evan shifted noiselessly through the weight of the water to face me, the only time. And, without speaking, he, reached for my hand under the cool swell and cradled it deeply into the hollow of his own._

_'It's not you.' I sighed into the dark. 'It's not you.' _

Lucy stared with troubled doom painted across her face. She didn't speak, for once in a very long time she hadn't consciously collected the words quickly enough. Although her cheeks started to fall glumly and she had so earnestly promised no pity. She was a failure to her inevitable emotion.

We waited long into the afternoon, Lucy still fixated statue like on her seat opposite me, her eyes glaring, water filled, at a space just above my head. I pressed myself deeply into the couch and watched the light crawl in slow motion over her cheeks. I wasn't crying, I wasn't even empty, this troubled Lucy. I moved my eyes about the walls in a slow rhythm, counting all the rosettes along Lucy's thick ceiling cornices.

The hum of a child like tune broke the draining silence. Jamie surfaced playfully at Lucy's door, knocking haphazardly before bellowing out two reckless verses of 'Greensleeves', a cylindrical paper container of iced-cream waving about in his hands. Lucy didn't jerk. And I only tore my eyes up in careful silence. Jamie rose his eyebrows in inquisition.

"Do you think it's bad if she isn't moving?" he asked, now purposely shifting the cold parcel in his hands.

"I better go" I sighed ignoring Jamie's statement with a whimsical throw of my gaze.

"I'll walk you to the door." Lucy sighed breaking of her cast of silence like a baby chicken emerging from its egg. Jamie raised the iced-cream now in anxiety.

"But I haven't even offered you some iced-cream!" he protested sinking childlike into the wall. But Lucy wrapped her my arm into her chest and led me to her door, in perfect silence.


End file.
